The Night Will Come Soon
by EtherealMay
Summary: HaoXOC. After encountering a ghost in the mirror, an ordinary college girl gets pulled into the Shaman King world. Demons, ghosts, evil spirits, and what's worse? Cocky little shamans fighting over the world. She has to get outta here.
1. Prologue

**WARNINGS:**

-Although the category is Shaman King, this story is affiliated with a lot of different series. If you don't know a certain anime or manga, just treat those characters as original characters. Of course, I do not claim ownership of anything copyrighted here.

-This story is highly OC-centric.

-This story is dedicated to all Pokemon lovers. What?

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Prologue**

It all started on a hot and humid summer's day in New York City. Mona Geraldine was enjoying her break from college by playing her favorite game, Pokemon, though the stern expression on her face did not show that she was enjoying the game at all.

_Ninetails is confused… it hurt itself in its confusion._

"Damn it," Mona cursed at her black Nintendo DS while grumpily pressing the A button, despite knowing that it won't do any good. "You useless little fox… go ahead, be confused! I'm not giving you any potion, and you will kill yourself…"

"Mona, honey, are you talking to your game?" Mona's mother, often referred to as Ms. Geraldine, briefly stopped cutting the vegetables on the kitchen counter and looked over her shoulder at her daughter. She shook her head when she received no answer to her question, and also from the sight of her daughter curled up on the couch, still in her pajamas in the middle of the day.

Ms. Geraldine never asked for much from her daughter; if there were one request, it would be for Mona to listen to her more. However, Mona was pretty much the head of the household. You see, Ms. Geraldine had Mona when she was at the young age of eighteen, and due to many reasons, Ms. Geraldine did not marry the father and decided to raise Mona on her own. Ms. Geraldine dropped out of high school and worked various jobs while Granny Geraldine took care of Mona at home. Mona, ever since she was very young, has been extremely strict about logic, intellect, and even more extremely about her own opinions about everything, so Ms. Geraldine, who had failed too many of Mona's standards, has been demoted to be her daughter's equal.

Although Ms. Geraldine was happy that Mona turned out smarter than her, she still hoped for some authority as a mother. But when she complains about that, Mona would always pat her on the shoulder as if she was a kid, and say, "you're not my mother; you're my _best friend_." And that fooled Ms. Geraldine every time.

"Mona! Open the door! I know you're home!"

Hearing the monstrous shouting and thunder-like knocking from outside, Mrs. Geraldine looked toward the front door. "Isn't that Lisa? You gonna go open the door?"

"Don't wanna."

"Isn't she your best friend? You should go hang out with her."

"She's probably just here to force her interests down my throat again…"

Despite of her complaints, Mona got up from the couch and slowly made her way to the front door. Just when Mrs. Geraldine thought the front door was going to be knocked down, Mona finally opened the door.

"What do you want?" Mona asked, holding her game up to show Lisa that she was interrupting.

"Don't tell me you've been playing Pokemon all day every day since summer started," Lisa eyed the game and made an accurate assumption. "All right, Mona, go get dressed. We're going to Sarah's place!"

"Why am I going?"

"We were gonna have a Supernatural marathon, remember?"

"Again, why am I going?"

Lisa narrowed her eyes and forcefully let herself through the doorway. "Mona Geraldine! Do you realize that I'm doing this for your sake? After this summer, you are going to be a graduating senior from college, and you're still playing Pokemon all day? You know that after graduation, we're all gonna split up to do whatever we must, so we aren't gonna have a lot of chances to see each other anymore!"

"You are overreacting…" Mona said calmly, "it's the 21st century; it's so easy to get to places. I don't know what you're worried about."

Lisa grabbed both of Mona's shoulders and shook her. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, MONA! This is why people think you're cold! Creating memories is what we do!"

"We already have plenty of memories."

Lisa stopped shaking Mona and sighed exasperatedly. Finally, she looked at Mona in the eyes and used her last resort, "AND Sarah's mom is making her homemade fried chicken for us tonight! Remember how those tasted last time? Do you really wanna let that go?"

Mona's eyes lit up at the words 'fried chicken'. She tried to remember what Ms. Geraldine said about what's for dinner, but she never liked the taste of Ms. Geraldine's cooking anyway. So after a few more minutes of hesitation, she let Lisa into the living room and told her to wait while she got dressed.

Mona first went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her hair. Although those were just two things, she did them extremely slowly. It is not that she hated hanging out with Lisa, but it is that she had told Lisa over and over that she does not enjoy watching those horror flicks. In fact, Mona could not understand why _anyone_ would enjoy those things. Why would anyone purposefully scare themselves like that? Every time after they watch things like that, Mona would have to repeat to herself that ghosts are not scientifically proven to exist. But it scares her that they are also not scientifically proven to _not_ exist. But for that juicy, delicious fried chicken, Mona was going to swallow up her fear and try to block out as much sound as she could without Lisa catching her.

After wiping her face dry with a towel, Mona was ready to leave the bathroom. However, when she turned the door knob, the door refused to open. Mona raised an eyebrow and checked that the lock was indeed unlocked already. Lisa must have locked it from outside, that little brat, Mona thought. With her other hand, she pounded on the door.

"Lisa! Open the door! You know you are so getting smacked for this!"

There was no answer. In fact, it was completely quiet outside of the bathroom. Mona could not hear even the lightest sound of her mother cutting vegetables. An eerie feeling immediately emerged from Mona's head to toes. Mona tried to yell again, but this time…

"Lisa! Mom! Are you guys—"

The light suddenly went off.

Mona let out a small "ah!" and jumped from fright. She was beginning to feel very scared now and the only sound she could hear was her racing heartbeat.

Slowly, Mona's eyes were getting used to the dark and she began to see things more clearly. But things seem be have more of a bluish hue to them. Suddenly, the whole bathroom was glowing in bright blue. Mona gasped but could not even scream. She started to turn the knob furiously and even tried to slam through the door with her body, but the door would not budge. She looked around the bathroom frantically for anything that she could use, but as her eyes looked past the mirror, something horrifying was standing there right in front of her reflection—a blood-drenched little girl her long black hair spread over her face.

"SHIT!"

Mona threw away all of her usual calmness and screamed. As she started screaming, the girl reached her hand out and it came out of the mirror. Shouting a series of curse words, Mona backed into the corner of the bathroom to be as far away from the little girl as possible. Surprisingly, all Mona could think about at that moment was all the tips and tricks to scare away evil ghosts that Lisa had taught her. Salt, holy water, incense, burning herbs… BUT WHO WOULD CARRY THAT KIND OF STUFF INTO THE BATHROOM?

"Goddamn it, Lisa… I don't want to die here!" Mona started to throw anything she could reach at the little girl, but the little girl already had all of her upper body out from the mirror. The little girl raised her head and looked directly at Mona's face. Mona saw nothing but hatred and vengeance in her eyes. At that, Mona remembered what Lisa told her about the legend of Bloody Mary. There are many different myths about Bloody Mary, but they are often about the spirit of a mother who was accused of killing her own child, but it was actually miscarriage. The wrongly accused mother died hearing the hateful voices of her family and friends calling her names. That is why, when you say Bloody Mary in a dark room, the evil spirit, believing that you are one of those people who cursed her to death, would appear before you in the form of a young maiden and rip your face off.

Terrified of her realization, Mona unconsciously put her hands on her face to protect it.

"P-Please, Mary, don't be unreasonable! Even though someone turned off the light, I didn't even call your name!" Mona started to spew out anything that came though her mind. "Actually, YOU were the one that turned off the light, weren't you?"

Out of frustration, Mona pointed her finger at the little girl and yelled. But the little girl's expression only became fiercer, and she continued to climb out of the mirror.

"OH, COME ON!" Mona tried to scoot further away. "I'm not one of those people who accused you of being a murderer! They were uneducated bastards, all right? Trust me, you're not at fault! Miscarriage still happens in this era, and some people still blame the mother, but those are all the older generation. People understand more about the female body now and we all know that there is no such thing as a witch, so you should stop being so angry!"

Finally, the little girl was completely out of the mirror. In an instant, she was right in front of Mona and grabbed Mona's hands.

"DAMMIT, MARY! How is killing a fellow woman going to satisfy you, huh? You're just like those aimless villains who just want to take over the world for the stupidest reasons! Humans will be human no matter what you do!"

"Shut up…"

"…eh?" Mona barely heard the small voice coming of out the little girl's mouth. The little girl's face was just a few inches away from Mona's, and all of a sudden, Mona noticed that underneath the blood, the little girl had a very pretty face.

"No wonder you were accused of killing your child," Mona said without thinking, "what kind of prostitute would risk having a baby? No offense, Mary…"

The little girl's face darkened immediately. In an almost inaudible voice, she said…

"My name is not Mary."

Mona felt a strong pull on her hands, and she saw past the little girl's shoulder that the mirror was reflecting a scenery completely different from her bathroom. And the next second, Mona was pulled into the mirror, and she saw darkness. And then, she felt a suffocating pressure all over her body, which got heavier and heavier until it was too painful for her to bear, and that's when she fell into unconsciousness.

* * *

"…and in 1338, Ashikaga Takauji established the Muromachi period…"

The last class of the day is history for the classroom of Year 2 Class D of Tokofushi Middle School. Students were either sleeping or resisting the urge of falling asleep. All but one eccentric female classmate, who was sitting up straight with a very concentrated expression on her face. The history teacher looked at the outstanding student with approbation; however, he could not see from the distance between them that the girl was shaking uncontrollably.

"Kanzaki-kun, can you tell us what important event happened from 1467 to 1477?" asked the unknowing teacher.

Kanzaki Ushio, the seemingly attentive female student by the window, shook even harder at the teacher's question. If you looked closely, she was exactly one centimeter away from actually sitting down on her chair. She has been in that position for the whole day, and she could barely feel her legs. But the threatening eyes staring into the side of her head kept her going at it.

"T-the… Ounin… War…" she pushed the words through her gritted teeth.

"Excellent!" the teacher clapped his hands together. "All right! We'll continue with this period tomorrow. Don't forget there's a quiz next week!"

A collective moan sounded from the all the students, but Ushio didn't even have the strength to moan. She collapsed into her chair the moment that the teacher left the classroom. She slowly turned left to look outside the window, which was entirely covered by a giant blue creature that stood outside. Most students in the school don't seem to notice it, but there are humans in this world who possess stronger spiritual power than others. One of them is Tokofushi's student council president, Okawa Toshiaki.

"KANZAKI-SAN!"

As the students of class 2D gradually left the room, the formerly mentioned student council president stumped into the classroom and advanced toward Ushio, who was massaging her legs. The girl looked up at the fuming third-year, unfazed by his loud voice.

"Good afternoon, Okawa-kun."

"What is that giant blue thing doing there?" Okawa lowered his voice once he got closer to Ushio.

"That's Anna's shikigami, Zenki."

"I _know_ that's Kyoyama-san's shikigami! There was a red one last time…"

"Oh, the red one's name is Kouki."

"I don't care what their names are!" Okawa slapped Ushio's desk. "I'm asking you why they're here! It's true that most of the students here can't see spirits, but normal people can still feel pressure from unworldly creatures! It's going to affect their schoolwork!"

"Hey, I'd be happy too if they left me alone," Ushio shrugged. "But Anna sent them here to make sure I do these trainings. If you wanted to lecture somebody, go lecture Anna. Trust me; I'm sick of these spying spirits too."

Ushio stretched in her seat, but the pain from today and yesterday and the days before yesterday would not go away. She sighed inwardly and cursed the day that she came to this world. Yes, Kanzaki Ushio was the girl that Mona Geraldine had been living as after she was pulled into the mirror by the nameless little girl. Ever since that day, her life had been a living hell.

* * *

When Mona first woke up from her unconsciousness, she was in a place completely foreign to her. She was enclosed by some cheap plastic bars, and above her head dangled a baby mobile with giraffes. Realization dawned upon her and she looked at her hands. They were small and fat and had stubby fingers. She was turned into a baby. Out of frustration, she did the only thing that a baby like her could do—cry. And almost as soon as she started crying, a woman hovered over her. The woman was young and beautiful, but the one thing that stood out the most to Mona was that she was not American. The woman lifted Mona out of the cradle and rocked her in her arms.

"_Shh…shh…what's wrong, Ushio-chan? Are you hungry? Did you poo-poo?"_

The woman had a sweet voice, but Mona could not understand the words that were coming out of her mouth. But somehow she had a hunch that Ushio was her name and the woman was, indeed, her mother. Although everything was unbelievably bizarre, Mona stopped crying and yawned as the woman rocked her gently. Maybe her baby's intuition told her that she was safe because she was in her mother's arms.

The first few days of Mona's new life had been lazy and peaceful. A baby's ability of acquiring its first language is amazingly fast; in a very short time, Mona was able to understand most things that her new mother said. Moreover, Mona began to gradually accept the fact that she was no longer in America, and she may not even be in the same world. This assumption was proven correct on the 7th night that she got turned into a baby, when she woke up in the middle of her sleep from the feeling of some liquid dropping on her face. As she opened her eyes, the most gruesome scene was in front of her—her mother, pinned to the ceiling by something invisible, looked at her with terror, and her stomach bleeding like someone had shot it with a shotgun.

"Ma…ma…"

Mona watched as her mother's body was set on fire from nothing at all. She was scared, but she couldn't remove her eyes from her mother's burning body. And then, from the corner of her eyes, she noticed a movement. She couldn't really tell what it was, but there was definitely something in the nursery with them. She felt the creature coming toward her, and just as she cursed her immobility as an infant, another visible shadow appeared by the window. Before she could see clearly who it was, the shadow took her from the crib and jumped out of the window in a flash. Mona felt the cold wind slapping her face; the person who took her was running hastily through the woods. She looked up and saw that it was a man whose face was covered by a crow-like mask. After an hour of running, the man stopped in front of an enormous Japanese-style mansion. At the front door stood a short old man with a long cigarette holder in his mouth.

"Is that the child, Mikihisa?" asked the old man.

"Most likely," said the man carrying Mona. "However, something felt strange. When I arrived, her mother was killed by a demon. That demon didn't look like just any demon either. It looked like it was after this child…"

"I wouldn't be surprised," the old man turned around and walked inside the mansion.

"Bring her in."

Later on, Mona found out that the man who saved her was Asakura Mikihisa, while the old man was his father, Asakura Yohmei. The Asakuras were a family of onmyouji that was established as early as the Heian Period. Since Mikihisa was busy and away all the time, it was Yohmei who took care of her from the day that they took her in. Yohmei told her about her family, but he knew just as much as she already knew. He explained to her about the onmyouji's theory of yin (darkness) and yang (light). All humans possess the complementary elements; however, females are born to be more oriented toward the yin, so they are often the target of demons, spirits, and other unworldly creatures. Since Mikihisa happened to save her, Yohmei insisted that she studied the art of shamanism under him.

Mona knew that Yohmei was hiding a lot of things from her, because Mikihisa obviously did not _happen_ to save her. But she decided that it would be good to learn from Yohmei. Encountering demons and spirits was becoming a frequent thing with her, and she could also see them more clearly as she grew older. Accepting that all of this was real, Mona became Yohmei's disciple and continued this life as Kanzaki Ushio.

For most of her childhood years she trained with Yohmei in Izumo. She also grew up with Asakura Yoh, Mikihisa's son, who was one year younger than she and was also under the training of shamanism. Yoh had a great gift in this field, but Mona also excelled especially in the area of exorcism. Maybe because of her past life's experience of being a student of biology major, she found it easy to memorize the different sutras and rituals of exorcising different spirits. Although she was reluctant about dealing with all these demons and stuff that she hated, she was determined that through her new abilities, she was going to find the little girl in the mirror, and force her to take her back to her original world. She wasn't going to give up Sarah's mom's homemade dinner. No, not yet.

Training under Yohmei was already very arduous, but when Yoh came home from his trip to Ozorenzan with a fiancée, her life became even worse than before. Kyoyama Anna was a skinny little girl when they first met, and she was a whole head shorter than Ushio. But when Ushio refused to learn how to summon spirits from Anna, she was sent to the hospital with fractured bones.

Anna's hellish training was really no joke. Unable to take Anna's abuse, Ushio moved to Tokyo on her own at the age of 13 and started self-learning and attending Tokofushi Middle School at the same time. But after one short year, Yoh also moved to her neighboring town Funbari Hills to train for some sort of tournament. Ushio was not interested at all, and she had no problem with Yoh's moving. Unfortunately, after a few days, Anna also moved in with Yoh. For some reason, Anna forced Ushio to receive the same training as Yoh to prepare for the Shaman Fight, but Ushio had no interest in entering at all.

"You will enter it. I'm not giving you another choice," was what Anna said.

"You don't give me choices, Anna!" Ushio retorted. "I'm busy with school and I can already make a living by exorcising spirits. I'm not interested in that stupid title."

"Oh?" Anna raised an eyebrow. She tugged at her 1080 beads; at that Ushio started to sweat—that usually meant that Anna was going to summon Zenki and Kouki. "Then you can go to hell now."

Of course, Anna never hurts Ushio that badly, because Ushio was quite good at cleaning. Many years later, Ushio would realize that training under Anna was pretty much the same as being Anna's housemaid. Although she hated Anna and all the things that Anna made her do, Ushio would think back on it and see that those years were probably the easiest years of her life. But nothing was ever going to make her say that she was lucky to have met Anna; she was not a pushover like Yoh.

"Sorry, but I've got other things to do."

Ushio cracked her fists and aimed at Anna's face, but as usual, Anna took down Ushio with one slap.

"Too slow, Ushio," Anna said coldly, "Don't even dream about laying a finger on me without a guardian spirit. It's about time you found one; even Yoh did already."

* * *

"You see? I think it's still swollen," Ushio pointed at her face.

"Well, I don't care if she wants to spy on you, but tell her not to use such a big shikigami next time!" Okawa Toshiaki had only met Anna once she came to Tokofushi to find Ushio, but that was enough for him to vowel to stay away from that girl. "Anyhow, did Shimai-san come to class today?"

"Who?"

"Shimai Reiko, your classmate!" Okawa said raised his voice as all the students left the classroom already. "Your classmate hasn't been to school for the past four days, and you don't even know?"

"Well, how am I supposed to know if she doesn't come to class?"

"You guys were classmates in first year, too!"

"What do you want me to do about it, then?"

"I went to her house yesterday to try and visit, but her mother looked really nervous and didn't let me in," Okawa started to explain. "I thought it might have something to do with…what you do."

"She's probably just sick with chicken pox or something like that," Ushio yawned and started to pack up her things; her legs were feeling better now. "Normally they have to be isolated. I know you think Tokofushi is filled with youkai's and evil spirits and stuff, but there's really not a lot. You just think so because I happened to be here and you don't see onmyouji's everywhere."

"Kanzaki-san, can you not be so cold towards your fellow classmate?" Okawa said with a sigh. "Even if it's just chicken pox, you can come with me with one of those charms you make. They'll drive away bad spirits, right?"

"No way, those charms were made through proper ritual. I usually sell them for at least 3000 yen each," Ushio stood up from her chair and slung her bag over her shoulder. "It was nice talking to you, Okawa-kun, but I've gotta get on the next bus heading for Funbari Hills. When Anna sends Zenki to spy on me, that means she's 'summoning' me to her house."

"Wa-wait, Kanzaki-san!"

Normally, it takes about five minutes to get from Tokofushi to Funbari Hills by bus. Ushio used the extra time she had to run to the ramen shop and bought three bowls of miso ramen to go. When she got to the bus stop, the blue shikigami Zenki appeared in front of her again. _Dammit, _Ushio cursed in her head, _Anna just won't let me have it easy._ Instead of boarding the bus that arrived, Ushio started running towards Funbari Hills while making sure that she doesn't spill the ramen. As a result, Ushio got to the Asakura residence ten minutes later than she planned.

"Ah, you're here, Ushio!"

Yoh stood in the doorway with a broom in his hand. Even though Yoh usually talked with a lazy tone in his voice, Ushio could tell that Anna has been slave-driving her fiancée every day. Ushio couldn't deny that she feels sorry for the guy, but she also thought that Yoh was too chicken. Yoh obviously hates training—ever since he was little—but he still smiles and does whatever Anna orders him to do. By the time they really get married, Yoh would still be Anna's leg rest. Unless Yoh doesn't mind, that is.

"Did you prepare dinner yet?"

Yoh's smile turned sour immediately. "No, I just got back from running 100 kilos. And I still have to mop the floor."

Ushio looked over Yoh's shoulder to look for Anna. "Anna's not home?"

"She's not home from her daily stroll yet."

"I thought so," Ushio took off her shoes and lifted the ramen takeout box for Yoh to see. "I bought these to save time. We'll put it in your bowls so she'll think I made it. Of course, you're gonna reimburse me later."

"Ahaha, thanks, Ushio," said Yoh, "you saved my life."

Truthfully, Ushio's first priority was to save her own. But since Yoh had been her friend for so long, Ushio thought she'd save his too. After dumping the ramen into different bowls, Ushio took the ramen shop's bowls and takeout box outside to hide in the yard. Just as she found a nice big tree to hide them with, a voice colder than her own was heard behind her.

"Did you actually have the nerve to serve me takeout food?"

Ushio jerked around to see her worst nightmare. Anna, dressed in her usual black mini dress, stood over her like a lioness, even though she was still younger and shorter than Ushio. However, the bright blue shine of the 1080 beads were enough to send chills down Ushio's back.

"Anna, this is the most popular ramen shop in Tokofushi. You should know that it's very hard to get your hands on their ramen because they always have very long lines."

Anna stared at Ushio coldly and ignored her excuses. "Zenki said that you didn't wear the weights I gave you when you were running here."

"He lied; he never liked me. Don't listen to that blue liar."

"I will be adding 10 more kilos to your weights tonight," said Anna as she turned away and walked into the house.

Ushio pointed her middle finger at the scrawny blonde girl, but put it down quickly remembering that there are ghosts of Asakura ancestors all around here.

Dinner time with Anna and Yoh was always awkward. Anna never talks, not even when Yoh tries to strike a conversation. It always ended up with Yoh asking about how Ushio's school was and if she ran into any interesting spirits in her town. But Ushio doesn't particularly enjoy sharing every bits and pieces of her life with people, even if it's Yoh or Anna. As usual, Ushio ended the conversation quickly, telling Yoh that the spirits that she encountered in Tokofushi were mostly evil spirits that she had to exorcise for people.

"Evil or not, have you found a strong spirit to be your guardian spirit yet?" Anna asked.

"Again, I don't need a guardian spirit to do exorcism," said Ushio with annoyance, "AND I don't need those physical trainings either! I already said that I wasn't going to enter that tournament thing!"

"You are entering. You are going to be on Yoh's team and make him Shaman King," Anna sipped the ramen soup. "For my happiness."

"Now I'm even more sure that I'm not entering."

"All right, all right, Anna. Don't force Ushio to enter if she doesn't want to. It's dangerous, anyway!"

"You're too soft, Yoh. I'm trying to help you find useful allies."

"Tch… why don't you enter yourself then…" Ushio muttered and continued to eat her ramen. Suddenly, her phone started to ring. The caller was Okawa Toshiaki. Ushio was not in the mood to talk with the over-responsible student council president about some random classmate. But right after the ringing stopped came the message tone. Ushio was going to ignore that too, but the message tone rang twice. It must be an emergency. Ushio flipped open her phone to read the message.

"I just went to Shimai's house. Shimai Reiko is dead."

"She had no face."

**To Be Continued**


	2. Ushio the Onmyouji

**A/N: **The new character introduced here, Hades Itsuhito, is from the series "Houkenjitsu no Shinigami."

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter One **

**Ushio the Onmyouji**

It was around half past seven when Ushio got to Tokofushi City Hospital. On a bench in a quiet hallway sat a sobbing woman, a tall man with pasty white hair over his dried-out face who was patting her back, and Okawa Toshiaki sullenly looking at the floor. The fifteen-year-old student council president did not even notice when Ushio got close to him. Ushio has known him for over a year and she has never seen him so distracted.

The man sitting next to the crying woman raised his head and noticed Ushio. "Ah, it's you, Kanzaki-kun,"

"Oh, Hades-sensei," Ushio greeted the man with horrifyingly pale skin. "You're here too?"

The man addressed Hades-sensei nodded. Hades Itsuhito, the new infirmary teacher at Tokofushi Middle School, could also be called an exorcist. He mostly dealt with disease type demons, which target children and elders because of their weak bodies. Hades himself has a disease demon living inside of him—a parasite to be exact—that feeds on all kinds of life sources. It is something that is both killing him and helping him, but what Hades decides to do with it is none of Ushio's business.

"What happened to Okawa?" Ushio asked the only person that seemed capable enough to speak here.

"He's just shocked from what he saw" said Hades, standing up from the bench, "I know that he's seen quite a few demons and spirits with you, but it was his first time seeing…death."

Ushio nodded. "Have you seen the girl?"

"…her face was torn off completely," Hades explained gravely, "but it definitely was not a disease demon. I couldn't find traces of any demons on her body."

"And I've already got a feel of the whole hospital; there isn't a single demon here." Ushio turned to the woman and said, "Shimai-san, right? I performed a bit of fortune reading before coming; I heard that your daughter died in the bathroom. Did you see how exactly your daughter died? What did she do that caused her to die? Why didn't she go to school for the past four days?"

Shimai's mother was startled by Ushio's chain of questions. She was still sobbing and flustered in the face, and she felt intimidated by Ushio's eyes staring into hers. "I… I… I don't know…"

"You have to tell me these things so I can find the thing that killed your daughter."

Okawa, who had been quiet all this time, finally reacted. "Wait, Kanzaki-san. Give Shimai-san a minute; she just lost her daughter…"

"If she was home for four days before dying, the only person who would know what happened best is her mother. Depending on what she says, it might not even be a demon this time. Then I would've wasted my time coming here."

"Don't be so insensitive!" Okawa stood up angrily and got between Ushio and Shimai's mother.

Ushio thought about retorting him, but decided against it. She knew Okawa enough that if she showed _any_ sign of irritation, he would start apologizing like it's the end of the world. However, she also wanted to get this case over with. She only came here because she read in her fortune that Shimai Reiko died in the bathroom, and that might give her a clue about the girl in the mirror. But now that it seems like there's no demon around, she wanted to go home and rest up.

Ignoring Okawa, Ushio turned to Hades and asked, "What time did she die?"

"It's almost been an hour," said Hades, "she's already been sent to the mortuary."

"I see. Then I have no other choice."

Ushio stepped out of the hallway and into a wider space. She fished out a piece of chalk and blue beads from her pockets and knelt down. On the floor of the hospital she drew a _torii*_ symbol with the chalk, and then stood up while holding out her heads with two hands over the symbol.

"What are you doing, Kanzaki-san?" Okawa asked.

"If I can't get anything out from her mother, I'm going to summon Shimai Reiko's spirit here. I'm not good at channeling spirits, but since she just died recently, it shouldn't be that difficult."

"What? Wait!" Okawa stepped up to stop Ushio. "Isn't that disrespectful to the dead? What if you get cursed with bad luck or something?"

"That's why I'm using a _torii _gate," said Ushio, not even looking at the boy. "But the ghost is just a normal teenage girl anyway. You worry too much, Okawa."

Okawa was silenced by that. The three spectators watched as Ushio chanted something under her breath, and suddenly the temperature in the hospital dropped significantly. Shimai's mother could not see it, but Okawa and Hades saw blue fires floating around Ushio. And then, after chanting, Ushio lifted the beads upwards, and Shimai Reiko appeared along with that motion. The girl was half transparent, and she looked scared and clueless.

"Y—you did it!" Okawa gasped.

"Reiko?" Shimai's mother looked blindly ahead towards Ushio. "Is Reiko here?"

"It seems like I got the right person," Ushio said, letting go of the bit of breath she was holding. "Well then, Shimai Reiko, tell me what killed you?"

"That's too straightforward, Kanzaki-san!"

Shimai Reiko looked terrified, but luckily, all of the people present were acquaintances of hers. Besides her mother, who could not see her, the most familiar person here was her classmate Kanzaki Ushio.

"Kanzaki-san? What's going on here? I thought I was dead…"

"You are. I just called you here to ask you a question. Don't worry, I will ask a _tengu_* to guide you back to the spirits' world," Ushio explained calmly. "Now, will you tell me what killed you?"

Although still confused, Shimai Reiko lowered her head and began to recall the incidents that happened before her death. "It… it happened four days ago. No, it actually started a lot earlier than that. You see, I have this really large birthmark on my forehead… I've tried to cover it with hair, but it doesn't cover it completely. People always made fun of me and called me ugly… and then… on that day… Takahashi-kun tore up my love letter right in front of me… he said that there's no way he would go out with someone as ugly as me…"

Shimai Reiko began to cry. Ushio frowned and said, "Calm down, Shimai Reiko. Get to the point."

"Kanzaki-san!" Okawa glared at the insensitive girl.

Ushio looked at Hades for help, and the young infirmary teacher walked up to Shimai Reiko and tried to smile warmly, but his pale and crackled face only looked creepier over the blue light. Shimai Reiko cried even harder.

"So you stopped coming to school because of the shame, and four days later your committed suicide by ripping your face off because you couldn't stand how its ugliness? If that's so, then this is a waste of my time," said Ushio, "Although your method of ripping your face off should be interesting for the newspapers…"

"THAT'S NOT IT!" Shimai Reiko cried out angrily. "I did stop coming to school because of Takahashi-kun, but I didn't kill myself! I locked myself in for three days, and then on the fourth day, I went out to just to buy something to eat at night… and then… that's when I saw the old lady…"

"Old lady?"

"Yes… she looked so kind… and nice. She was selling some cosmetics on the streets, because she wanted some extra money to buy toys for her grandkids. But she gave me this product for free; she said that it would help concealing the birthmark on my forehead. So I went home and tried to put it on in the bathroom… and then…" Shimai Reiko began to shake when she remembered what she saw. "my reflection in the mirror… it… it moved on its own… and I couldn't move! She reached out at me and her fingers went deep into my cheeks… and then… I just felt a lot of pain… and next thing I know, I was floating over my dead body…"

Okawa widened his eyes incredulously. He turned to Ushio, hoping for an explanation. "Kanzaki-san… this is…"

"Was it a white powder that she gave you?" Ushio asked.

"Y—yes…" Shimai Reiko was surprised that Ushio knew.

"Then it must have been _oshiroibaba_," Ushio concluded. "I'm surprised that it would appear here in Tokofushi. It's an evil spirit that appears often in the countryside, from the dead souls of old women who wished for youth. They walk on the streets with the appearance of old ladies, and trick young girls with the white powder. Once you put the powder on your face, she would come and rip your face off. This one must've chosen you as her target because you were young and weak, and distancing yourself from people makes it even easier for evil spirits to find you."

"Evil spirits?" Shimai's mother finally spoke up. She stepped closer to Ushio and looking around in attempt to see her daughter's ghost. "You mean my daughter was actually killed by an evil spirit?"

Ushio looked at the woman briefly from the corner of her eyes and said, "Yes. Should I say that you are lucky to never have to see the face of the one who killed your daughter?"

"Please, Kanzaki-san," Shimai's mother began to cry again, "please find that demon and exorcise it! My daughter would not be able to rest in peace knowing that her murderer is still out there…"

"You and your daughter both cry too much," said Ushio, turning around and looked at Shimai's mother coldly. "Before crying and begging others for help, did you first think about what you've done wrong? Let me tell you something: you hold a great responsibility in your daughter's death. Have you ever noticed that your daughter was depressed over her looks to the point that she stopped going to school? She was more upset about the fact that the boy she liked rejected her than the fact that she was killed by a demon. Aside from school, you were the only person she had. You could've done something. You could have spent more time with her; make sure she feels loved. Leaving aside that it was a demon, she could've been kidnapped or murdered by real people too if she was out alone at night…"

"I… I…" Shimai's mother looked horrified by the words that Ushio was speaking. She put her hands over her eyes and cried.

Ushio watched the woman silently. She noticed that she was not wearing a wedding ring. Divorced? Or maybe widowed. The woman must be busy at work every day being a single mother and all. Suspecting all that, Ushio still didn't think what she said was wrong. Even though she used to always criticize her mother for not having a proper job, she was always there, just being a mother. Choosing duty over family was not right to her.

"Kanzaki-san…" Shimai Reiko's timid voice took over Ushio's attention. She turned over to see the young girl look at her with worry.

"Please don't blame my mother… she's always very busy with work… it's my fault for causing her all this pain and stress…"

"I didn't say it wasn't your fault."

"…Eh?"

"You let all this happen to you because of a boy? This is the most ridiculous case I've ever encountered. You teenagers need to stop reading romance novels… there is more than one guy in the world for you, you know?"

"I… but… Takahashi-kun is…" Shimai Reiko began to cry again.

"Good god, give me a break!" Ushio massaged her temple with her fingers, feeling a migraine coming along. "What is done is done. I will go find that demon and get rid of it. I don't like doing free work, but if it's here running around killing young girls, it'll cause me trouble later anyway. Shimai Reiko, tell me where you saw that old lady last time."

"Kanzaki-san…" Okawa gradually began to smile; he knew that there was a good person deep inside the cold appearance Ushio had.

"Thank you… thank you, Kanzaki-san…" Shimai's mother said between sobs, "I don't know how to thank you… I… I don't have much right now… but this…"

Shimai's mother took out a few thousand yen from her purse and handed it to Ushio. Ushio glanced at the money and took it without question.

"It's quite dark outside already…" Hades remarked. "Kanzaki-kun, it shouldn't have gone very far. Demons usually don't leave one post for quite a few days."

"I know. I'll go take care of this quickly."

"Will you be ok? I can go along with you…"

"Hades-sensei, if you consumed this kind of evil spirit, it might be bad for your health," said Ushio, packing away her beads. "BUT if you're really worried, you can treat me out to the new steak place in front of the train station when I come back."

* * *

The time is a quarter to ten. Kumano Street was near an old cemetery, so the air here was even chillier than other areas. What a great place to decide to buy dinner, Ushio thought as she walked down the street. She walked slowly, sensing every corner of the street for evil spirits. However, it was strange because the usual ghosts that came out playing were not here today. There was also a pressuring feeling in the atmosphere that made Ushio feel like she shouldn't be here tonight, but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was.

A couple blocks from the cemetery there was a convenient store. Shimai Reiko was there an hour before her death to buy her dinner. The store was supposed to be open all day, but Ushio saw that the worker was getting ready to close up. Ushio didn't know why, but it's better for her that no one was around when she's performing exorcism anyway.

"Hey, miss, what are you doing out here so late?" the worker who had locked up the store and was ready to go home stopped in his track when he noticed Ushio loitering outside. "You look like you're in middle school. You shouldn't be out alone at this hour!"

The young worker left after that. Ushio watched him leave, wondering if he saw Shimai Reiko that night and if he said the same thing to her as well. She went toward a street light and stood under it so that it looked like she was waiting for someone. Once it was eleven o'clock, there was pretty much no one on the street anymore. Ushio tensed up a little bit; the demon must still be around.

Suddenly, the light above Ushio went out. But Ushio did not look up. Instead, she looked straight ahead with caution—her hand already clasped onto the beads in her pocket. Up ahead, an old lady could be seen coming toward Ushio. Even though it was in the dark, Ushio could see her very clearly because of the bluish atmosphere that surrounded her. And the old lady, although seemingly at a very old age, was walking with the speed of someone as young as Ushio. In a matter of seconds, the old lady was already right in front of Ushio.

"Hello there, young lady…" the old lady smiled at Ushio kindly, but a cold air could be felt all around her. "Are you waiting for your boyfriend?"

Ushio raised an eyebrow, thinking to herself that this demon was not as stupid as some other countryside demons. She decided to play along. "No, I don't have a boyfriend."

"Oh! How could that be! You're such a fine young girl!" the old lady put on a sympathetic face, but it soon turned back into the same smile as before. "You know what, my dear? You are very young and cute, but have you thought about using some makeup to enhance your pretty skin?"

"No, I have never," said Ushio, "Though I think you're the one that needs it, _baba_, you look like you had a tough life. Did you work too hard in the rice fields and never got to marry?"

"_B-baba?_" the old lady gasped but immediately fixed her facial expression. "S-silly young one, why would an o-old woman like me need to use this? I've had my time, and let me tell you, I HAVE BEEN MARRIED and I just hope that young girls like you could find as much happiness as I did…"

"That's unconvincing, _baba_, you should tell your boss that if he wanted to sell cosmetics, he should really hire beautiful young saleswomen."

"…Oh? Is that what you'd rather see?" the old woman said after a long silence, probably to calm herself, and put a dark smile on her face. "Is this more convincing to you?"

The old woman moved her hand from one side of her face to the other. Magically, her dried-up, wrinkled face turned into a young and familiar one to Ushio. Ushio did not scream or even looked surprised; she had expected the old woman to do a trick like this. What replaced the old woman's face was the face of Ushio's recently deceased classmate, Shimai Reiko. But all Ushio did was shake her head slowly.

"Unfortunately, no," said Ushio, "I'm not too impressed by that nasty birthmark of yours."

"…DIDN'T YOU PARENTS TEACH YOU ANY MANNERS?"

"No need to have manners for a demon," Ushio shrugged and took out her prayer beads. "And your kind killed my mother before she could even teach me to talk. So blame yourself!"

The demon's eyes widened at the sight of the beads. She turned on her tails and tried to run away, but Ushio got past her and blocked her way. Anna's trainings seemed to have shown its effect more than Ushio expected.

"Can't let you do that," said Ushio as she held out the beads in front of her. The beads seemed to have come to life and started to glow. The demon tried to run again, but this time her body was bound by an invisible force. And then, Ushio started to chant, "Namu daijidaihi kyuugu kyuunan…"

Starting from her limbs, the demon began to turn into dust. She glared hatefully at Ushio and started to scream.

"You bastard! You will not get out of this easily! You'll learn the hard way never to mess with us demons!"

"Again, not convincing," said Ushio, and with a swing of her hand, the last of the demon turned into dust and disappeared with the night's wind.

The streetlights blinked a few times and turned back on a few moments later. Ushio put the beads back into her pocket and looked at her watch. It was already past midnight, and she's gotta go back home to get as much sleep as she can. Ushio turned toward the direction of her home and started walking quickly. The streets were quiet even after Ushio had already finished her exorcism. In fact, it was too quiet for Ushio's comfort. It felt like there were still unworldly presences around her. Unconsciously, Ushio started walking faster while listening carefully for people's voices. If she got to a place with a lot of people, she would be safer. However, she noticed a few minutes later that she's been walking in the same direction, but she has not seen the end of the street like she was supposed to.

"Damn it… so another demon's here?" Ushio reached for her beads again and was thinking about heading back and finishing the other demon, but just as she thought of that, she felt even more presence of demons coming at her.

"One, two, three, four, five…" Ushio muttered, and the more she counted the worse her expression looked. "Tsk… there's definitely more than I can count… at this rate I can't even exorcise them all at once… How did I not sense them before?"

Knowing that she wasn't good enough to take on that many demons, Ushio decided to run for it. But this time, even though she ran as fast as she could, the demons seem to be closing in on her. Ushio didn't need to turn back to know the immense amount of demons chasing after her. She did not even have time to spare her concentration to think about why there were so many demons in one area.

I can't shake them off, she thought, they're gonna catch me sooner or later.

As a desperate measure, Ushio took out her cell phone and dialed one of the few numbers that she has logged into her contacts list. The phone rang on and on, but no one answered.

"Damn it, Yoh… why do you even have a cell phone if you never use it?"

Ushio turned at the corner into an ally and contemplated whether or not to call Anna, but just as she got into the ally, the presence of demons vanished. Ushio stopped with her feet and looked back, puzzled. The demons were instantly gone, and not a single one is left. But it's impossible for demons to get away that fast, she thought.

"It's useless to try to find them, Kanzaki Ushio. They're all gone."

A voice took Ushio's attention from behind. She jerked around to see a boy with a very familiar face standing behind her. She looked even more puzzled; when did the boy get here? And why does he look so familiar?

Knowing that she's probably wrong, she still pushed out a guess. "…Yoh…?"

The boy with a face extremely similar to Yoh's chuckled at Ushio's guess. "Hahaha! Wrong! But that's okay, because it's hard for people to distinguish between identical twins. Although I had expected you to be able to tell the difference between my soul and my weak little brother's…"

"Twins?" Ushio repeated the word with disbelief. "You are Yoh's twin brother?"

The boy looked like Yoh, no doubt. They're almost exactly the same besides the length of this boy's hair and his strange cloak. But after looking closely, Ushio could tell their difference. Yoh would never have such a sly smile like this boy.

"Yes, allow me to introduce myself properly," the boy's smile widened slightly. "My name is Asakura Hao, Yoh's older brother."

* * *

To be continued

* * *

*_torii_ is the traditional gate in front of a Shinto shrine. It literally means "bird gate" but it also means "passage gate." Since the Japanese had associated birds with death, _torii _is drawn as a passage way between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Since Ushio does not have as high of a status as Anna as a spirit medium, Ushio uses a _torii _gate so that bird gods can guide the dead spirits and that would not disturb the peace in the world of the dead.

*_tengu _are the highest ranked bird spirit amongst its kind.


	3. Asakura Hao

A/N: My deepest apologies for updating so late with such a short chapter. I am in the middle of important exams, which will continue on to next week. After that, I will have a lot of time to work on this story, so please bear with me!

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 2**

**Asakura Hao**

"Asakura Hao? I wouldn't doubt you since you look so much like Yoh, but I grew up with that guy and I've never heard him or his family mention a twin brother."

"Fufufu… of course not. In fact, they probably wish that I don't exist."

Ushio scrutinized the Yoh-lookalike in front of her carefully. Truly, besides the unbelievably similar face and physique, this Asakura Hao was definitely nothing like her childhood friend. Unlike Yoh, who was carefree and open to all things, Asakura Hao gave off a mysterious aura. And judging by what he said, he seemed to be not in good terms with the rest of the Asakura family. That is not so hard believe, since Yohmei had always been a strict grandfather, even with an outsider like Ushio. There had been many times in her childhood when Ushio wanted to quit learning from Yohmei and run away. Only someone like Yoh can ever be so accepting.

"What happened to the demons?" asked Ushio.

Asakura Hao's smile faltered for just a split second at Ushio's question. "That's what you're going to ask me? Not why the Asakura's want me dead?"

"I'm not interested in your family affairs. Besides, Yohmei's wanted me dead several times too," Ushio shrugged as she remembered the countless times in the past when she messed up during training and almost killed Yoh. "But it would be hard to believe if you told me that you exorcised all those demons at once. If you did, I'd like to know how you did it."

"…" Asakura Hao stared at Ushio with a bit of surprise, and started to laugh. "Hahaha! Very interesting, Kanzaki Ushio. Your thoughts and your speech are surprisingly in accordance."

"Oh, that reminds me," Ushio ignored Asakura Hao's mind-boggling words, "how do you know my name?"

Asakura Hao smiled amusingly at the strangely calm girl. "How about one question at a time? First of all, I didn't exorcise those spirits. They were all too weak and foolish, so they became Spirit of Fire's food!"

"Spirit of Fire?"

Ushio's eyes followed Asakura Hao's hand, which pointed slightly behind him. Just a few feet behind them appeared a gigantic red spirit, even bigger than Zenki and Kouki. Asakura Hao was pleased to see that Ushio's face was showing clear astonishment this time. The Spirit of Fire approached the two teenagers, and stopped right behind Asakura Hao. It knelt down behind the boy to show its obedience to him. Then, Ushio recognized the spirit as one of the few elemental spirits in the world. But as she recalled from the books she read, the Spirit of Fire was not supposed to be this big in size.

"Allow me to introduce my guardian spirit," Asakura Hao said proudly as he looked at Ushio's awed face. "Spirit of Fire."

"Is there a reason why you fattened him up this much?"

"To make him stronger, of course," said Asakura Hao as if Ushio asked a really dumb question, "Although it seems like no other shaman can even stand against Spirit of Fire right now. Honestly, I was surprised to hear that Yohmei would take in an outsider as his disciple, so I came to check out this Kanzaki Ushio myself. Who knew she was such a weakling like you; you don't even have a guardian spirit."

Ushio immediately linked Asakura Hao's words with the Shaman Fights that Anna mentioned to her a while back. Assuming that the two things are related, Ushio's face darkened at the detested thought. "If this is about that tournament for shamans, I'm not going to join it, so I surely don't need a guardian spirit. I'm not interested in being the 'strongest shaman' or whatever; if I get paid for exorcising spirits, then that's all I'll do."

"…Is that so?" Asakura Hao's eyes darkened at Ushio's words. "It's surprising how foolish some of you humans are. Even if you're a shaman, if you don't prove yourself worthy enough, I'm going to have to eliminate you along with the other humans when I obtain the power of the Great Spirit."

"Great Spirit?"

"People call it different names, but they all refer to the same thing—the one true power in the universe with knowledge of all things and control of all things," Asakura Hao explained with much ambition, "the winner of the shaman tournament will be named the Shaman King, and will be the only person in the world allowed to face the Great Spirit. And when I become Shaman King, I'm going to use the Great Spirit and cleanse this filthy world of humans. Only the worthy shamans will remain."

"…" Ushio cocked an eyebrow. She had heard about what Yoh wanted to do if he manages to come out victorious in the shaman fights, and his dream was the complete opposite of his twin brother's. Ushio was becoming more and more convinced that a young boy with a face exactly like Yoh's should not be saying things like that. "Young man, I recommend that you go home and watch One Piece or something. It's healthier for you. Stop watching those dumb shows with villains that just want to take over the world. You're not gonna have any friends."

"…" the corner of Asakura Hao's mouth twitched. He stood in the dark, staring at Ushio with his unchanging smile, but you could tell that he was not happy.

Ushio looked at her watch and it was already far past midnight. She wanted to leave now, but the Spirit of Fire stood in her way and it looked as if it was going to eat her if she budged an inch. She waved her hand in front of Asakura Hao. "Hey, can I go now? You should go home too. Kids your age shouldn't be out so late…"

"Kids?" Asakura Hao repeated the word amusingly. "Well, it's true that you're the only other person that I've ever met to have a soul with more than one life time…"

Asakura Hao's words suddenly struck Ushio and she opened her eyes wide in surprise. "Wait! How do you know about my—"

The boy chuckled and turned away, looking at Ushio with the corner of his eyes. "Whether you're willing or not, the amount of furyoku you have qualifies you to be a contestant in the shaman fights. A commissioner from Patch _will_ come to bother you. You _will _be involved in this no matter what, and I probably don't even have to waste my strength killing you."

Ushio watched as Asakura Hao jumped onto the shoulder of the Spirit of Fire. The Spirit of Fire leapt off into the air and flew away, leaving a trace of red light in the sky. Ushio's calm mind was finally shaken at Asakura Hao's last words. She stood in that alley even after the boy was completely out of her sight, contemplating all the possible reasons why he would know all those things about her. Not just about her, but what if he knew about Mona Geraldine as well? Ushio moved stiffly away from where she stood. She was probably not going to be able to fall asleep with these thoughts in mind.

* * *

"That boy must be very strong… having the Spirit of Fire as his partner…" said Hades Itsuhito as he poured the hot green tea into two cups.

Ushio did not go to sleep at all, just as she expected. Her questions overwhelmed her fatigue through the early morning hours until it was time to get ready for school. However, after taking a shower and getting dressed, Ushio finally began to feel tired. Fortunately, Anna did not send any of her watch-ghosts to spy on Ushio today. Ushio got to school quickly, and instead of a classroom, she headed for the infirmary. Of course, the student-loving infirmary teacher, Hades-sensei, couldn't reject Ushio even if she was skipping class. Hence, Ushio slept in the infirmary past three morning classes.

"That's not the part—_crunch—_that I'm worried about. I mean—_crunch—_even Anna can wield god-class spirits at such a young age—_crunch—_so I wasn't that surprised to see the Spirit of Fire under someone's control," Ushio said as she munched on the senbei* that Hades bought and stored in the infirmary for the rare occasions that the students actually come in, besides Ushio of course. What I don't understand is how he knew so much about me. He knew things that even old man Yohmei don't know."

Ushio chose her words carefully as to not revealing the fact that she was not from this world.

After the events with Asakura Hao last night, the first thing Ushio did was the only rational thing that anyone would do. She called her master, Asakura Yohmei, who is also the grandfather of this Asakura Hao. When Ushio mentioned Asakura Hao's name, the long pause from Yohmei's side confirmed that Asakura Hao was not lying about his identity. Yohmei refused to talk to Ushio about the boy and warned her to stay away from him, and Ushio understood it. She was not part of the Asakura family and had no right to probe into their business. She reassured the old man that she was not interested in their affairs. However, she did not give him any promise that she'll stay away from the boy. The boy knew some things, and it might even help her find her way home.

Hades placed the tea in front of her. Ushio licked the crumbs off her fingers and sipped the tea. The tea was hot and comforting to her stomach; she let out a deep breath.

"Hades-sensei, you should get some manju* next time. They would go a lot better with this tea than those senbei."

"…Maybe you should stop with your exorcism activities for now, Kanzaki-kun," said Hades after a long pause. Whenever he looked at Ushio, he always thought that her facial expressions didn't suit her. The girl was merely fifteen, but she never really smiled, and she never seemed to talk about anything besides the cases she took or the arduous training that Anna or Yohmei gave her. Ever since he came to Tokofushi, Ushio had been the first student to come into the infirmary and the only one to come in frequently. Instead of being scared of his eerie face, the girl seems much more comfortable with him because they were both able to see spirits. Even though he hasn't known the girl for very long, it's easy to assume that Kanzaki Ushio didn't have many friends.

"What are you talking about?" Ushio looked at Hades as if he was making a bad joke. "It's the only way that I can make enough money to pay rent here. I absolutely refuse to live with Yoh and Anna again. Or go back to that hell-hole Izumo."

"But it's dangerous for you, especially because your job usually takes place late at night. Now that a person like Asakura Hao appeared, and with the shaman fights about to begin, a lot of dangerous people are going to gather in Tokyo. Besides, Kanzaki-kun, you're only a middle school student. I wish to see you make friends and play outside in the sun with other people your age."

"I have friends." Ushio leaned back into the cushioned chair and crossed her leg. "Why do you say that so suddenly, Hades-sensei? You don't even care if I skip class."

"I'm your teacher, Kanzaki-kun, I'm worried about you," said Hades with a caring smile, but it looked more creepy than caring because of Hades's pale and cracked face.

"I can take care of myself," Ushio mumbled uncomfortably at Hades's caring words.

Hades did not say any more; he knew that Ushio didn't like to rely on people. And it's impossible to convince her to, because she was so firm on her beliefs. Maybe she just needed to be around more people of her own age. But then again, what age group should Ushio really be categorized with?

"Is Kanzaki-san here?"

The door of the infirmary room was slid open suddenly. Okawa's eyes landed on Ushio right away as if already knowing that she would be here. Hades looked toward the young teen with a questioning gaze. On the other hand, Ushio could already tell from the tone of Okawa's voice what he came to find her for. She turned around, not surprised by Okawa's appearance at all, and asked the boy,

"What is it this time?"

* * *

"The bullet train really is fast and comfortable to ride in… but the food they sell on here just doesn't taste as 'right' as the older trains had…"

Ushio wiped her lips and cleaned up the completely-eaten unagi*-rice lunchbox. It was early Saturday morning and Ushio has boarded the first train leaving for Aomori with her senior student body president Okawa Toshiaki. Ushio really didn't prefer waking up so early and riding the expensive bullet train, but since Okawa offered to pay for her trip, Ushio hesitantly agreed.

"Have you been listening to what I was saying, Kanzaki-san?" Okawa pushed his fingers against his forehead, trying not to lose his patience.

"Of course. Yoshida Kosuke from the soccer team went missing in the Hakkoda Mountains during the team's retreat, you said? Seriously, it's disappointing how people these days still don't have the common sense of traveling in groups when they're in the mountains." Ushio waved at the food cart lady that was walking down the aisle. "One bottle of cold tea, please!"

"That's not it! The team was all together, but the rest of the team testified that Yoshida-san suddenly disappeared. Nobody noticed that he went anywhere!"

"That would be 150 yen," the food cart lady came over and handed Ushio the cooled tea.

Ushio looked at Okawa indicatively, and the boy sighed and paid the worker.

"I contacted the hotel that they stayed at, and I found out that there had been a series of people going missing around that area. The Hakkoda Mountains had always been a safe place for hiking and camping, so there's no reason why people would start getting lost or getting into other trouble. The hotel owner suspected that it might be some kidnappers' doing, but I think it's more than that… because it seems that no one has asked for ransom from Yoshida-san's parents…"

"Kidnappers don't always want ransom. They can also sell people's body parts to the black markets."

"Please don't say things like that, Kanzaki-san!" Okawa said nervously, "Father has not even informed Yoshida-san's parents about his going missing. I want to try to find him as fast as possible for their sake…"

Ushio looked at Okawa with an unreadable stare. "You take it pretty hard being the student council's president and the son of an inspector from the police. Why don't you just leave it to your father's team to find him? They're pros; they're probably a lot more efficient than two middle school students."

"Father is very busy. They can't just use all of their time on one missing person even if they wished," Okawa looked down at his hands, which have formed into fists on his lap. "I have a responsibility over the students of Tokofushi. No matter what other cases my father is in charge of, it doesn't change the fact that Yoshida-san's parents must be worried sick. I want to help them with what I can. Especially in this case, I have this really strong feeling that it has to do with your expertise. Sorry for dragging you into this, but you're the only person I can trust with something like this."

Ushio looked down as well, and twisted the cap of the bottle open. She drank the tea slowly, and after that, she did not say anything to further the conversation. The next hour was spent in silence between Ushio and Okawa, each of them deep in their own thoughts. Ushio looked from the floor to the ceiling to the outside of the window—anywhere that wasn't near Okawa's face.

She didn't understand it. Why butt into a stranger's business? Why feel responsible for them? Why throw yourself into trouble for them?

* * *

To be continued.

* * *

*senbei: Japanese rice crackers.

*manju: Japanese confection. It has many flavors but the traditional one is made from flour, rice powder, buckwheat, and is filled with red bean paste on the inside.

*unagi: freshwater eel.


	4. Mysterious Disappearances in Hakkoda

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 3**

**Mysterious Disappearances in Hakkoda**

"It's too late! I'm already in Hakkoda and I already said that I'd take the case!"

Ushio and Okawa arrived in Hakkoda and got to the inn that the soccer team stayed at, Sukayu Ryokan, bright and early at 8 A.M. when the inn had just opened. Okawa rushed in eagerly, not forgetting his manners, and asked the owner of the inn about the soccer team. Ushio was on the phone with Anna a few feet away from Okawa. The customers who passed by them looked at them strangely. Aren't these kids too young to be having a date at an onsen already?

"Are you saying that you're going to let me, the future wife of the shaman king, go hungry with no lunch prepared?"

"Like hell I care if you starve to death…" Ushio muttered. "Tell Yoh to make it!"

"He's on his 200 kilos run," said Anna, "You'll do the same when you get back. Don't forget to bring back onsen manju from Sukayu."

With that, Anna hung up the phone. Ushio took a deep breath to calm her heart so that she doesn't throw her cellphone against the wall. By the time she was done with the phone call, Okawa was also done talking with the inn owner.

"I was right… it seems like the series of disappearances around here all happened in the same area…" said Okawa gravely. "It's in the deep woods not too far from here. The inn owner drew me a map. Let's go right now and see…"

Ushio stopped Okawa as he advanced toward the front door. "You really think you'll find anything this early in the day? If this was a demon's doing, it most likely won't appear in daylight. And what do you suppose we do if we did find something? The mountains are always filled with spirits; do you really think we can find anything here?"

Okawa frowned. "I want to find Yoshida-san and bring him back to Tokofushi."

"He went missing last weekend. It's not likely that we find—"

"But we have to try!" Okawa said, louder than he usually talked, and rushed through the door.

Ushio sighed and followed suit. When the two of them came up to the mountains she already felt something strange in the air. She did not see many of the nature spirits that she expected to see here. She heard the mountain wailing as if it was trying to tell people not to come near it. Maybe Okawa didn't hear it because his spiritual power was not strong enough. If there really was some kind of demon causing these people's disappearances, then Okawa would be in danger if he went alone into the woods. People with more spiritual power are always targeted.

Ushio and Okawa were the only people walking in the woods. Even though there are clear walking paths made for hiking, the people must have heard about the disappearances and stayed away from the woods. Ushio took in her surroundings with care and notice many abnormal things about this mountain. It is very common that gods of nature and all kinds of spirits to reside in the mountains, but she has not seen many since they stepped into the forest. They even encountered a group of nature spirits hurrying out of the mountain, carrying all their belongings.

"Are you feeling okay there, Okawa-kun?"

Okawa was breaking out a sweat even though the whole forest was filled with trees that covered the sunlight. He walked slowly and took deep breaths. Ushio could tell that the high pressure in the air was difficult for Okawa to stomach. In fact, it might be even worse for him if they came in at nighttime, when the spirits are all out and about.

"I… I'm all right…" said Okawa unconvincingly, "more spirits will come out when the sun sets, right? We gotta find Yoshida-san before then…"

Ushio was surprised that Okawa knew that much. It would be excellent if they were really able to find Yoshida before nightfall, but that is very unlikely. It is such a big mountain and there is something frighteningly powerful in it. So powerful that other spirits are fleeing.

"It must be sleeping right now…" Ushio murmured.

"What did you say?"

"Something powerful that didn't belong in this mountain before…" said Ushio, "the other spirits are fleeing while it's asleep. We might be dealing with something extremely dangerous…"

Okawa stared at Ushio and tightened his fists. "…I'm sorry, Kanzaki-san… I asked you to come here with me knowing that it's going to be dangerous…"

"Don't beat yourself up for it; I was the one that underestimated this situation," said Ushio with unusual seriousness. "What we're dealing with here… I'm not even sure if I'm capable of exorcising it…"

Okawa fell silent at Ushio's straightforward confession. For Ushio, who was always very confident in her abilities, to admit that she might not be able to handle this situation, which means whatever resides in this mountain must be extremely powerful. At this rate, their only option was really to find Yoshida before nightfall.

"Kanzaki-san!" Okawa said suddenly, pointing somewhere deeper in the woods. "There's someone lying over there!"

Ushio looked towards where Okawa was pointing. There was indeed someone lying down on the ground. The two teens hurried over to the body. When they got close, they knew immediately that it was not Yoshida, as the boy had a head of spiky blue hair wrapped with a headband, and strange clothing. He was unconscious on the ground and his cheeks were a little sunken in. Okawa knelt down and propped the boy up and tried to wake him. On the other hand, Ushio noticed the tiny spirit that has been flying around the unconscious boy since they came into view. The tiny spirit had a form similar to humans, and it wore clothing that had patterns similar to the boy's own clothes. It looked at Ushio and Okawa worriedly, but did not attack them. It was probably the boy's guardian spirit.

_This young boy has a guardian spirit, and it's not weak either,_ Ushio thought to herself. _Did he come to exorcise the demon here and got beaten? But he's not wounded…_

"Leave him here, Okawa-kun," said Ushio, "we need to move on quickly."

"But… this guy…" Okawa clearly couldn't leave the boy alone.

Ushio sighed, knowing that this would happen. "He's going to be extra baggage. It's unfortunate for him, but he shouldn't have come into the woods by himself anyway!"

"Don't say that, Kanzaki-san!" Okawa looked troubled. "Let's… let's take this guy back to the inn. I can't just leave this guy alone. Let's help him first and come back tomorrow morning…"

"Okawa-_senpai_, I know that you probably feel responsible for _everyone_ that's in need of help, but I do not have the time or the luxury to be staying around here for that long," Ushio crossed her arms and said irritably. "I came all the way up to Aomori because of you, and I'm dealing with something that might be life-threatening to me as well. I'm doing this because of our friendship, but don't go too far with this!"

"I'll pay for the room and meals!" Okawa said right away, looking at Ushio in the eyes. "At the Sukayu! Luxury Suite and everything!"

Ushio looked away. "Don't try to buy me with that stuff. I won't fall for it!"

"There's suppon*!"

"Well, I don't have any other case if I go back anyway."

Okawa smiled in relief. Even though he wished that Ushio would care more about others than earning money, he was glad that he's at least got Ushio by the stomach. For now, he'll do what he can to make Ushio help people.

"Su… su…"

"Hm?"

Ushio and Okawa snapped their heads toward the boy who had just shifted in Okawa's arms. The boy seemed to have gained a bit of consciousness, and was murmuring something with a weak voice. Ushio and Okawa leaned in closer to listen.

"Su… suppon…"

_GROWL—_

Ushio and Okawa looked at each other. Then, Ushio turned to look at the boy's guardian spirit, who was now blushing from embarrassment.

"Kanzaki-san… could it be... that he fainted from hunger?"

* * *

Okawa stared at the dinner table with his chopsticks raised but arm frozen. The hotel lady who was cooking the hotpot for the three teens was so scared that she left the ingredients on the table and rushed out. Over the table, you could only see shadows of hands flying over the hotpot, and food disappearing rapidly. Okawa looked to the left side of the table, where Ushio quietly but speedily consumed the premium beef in the pot. Then he looked to the right side, where the boy who was just unconscious a while ago was now wolfing down all the food in front of him.

"You two… can slow down, you know? The food's not going anywhere…"

"Are you kidding? This brat's eating all the food here, can't you see that?" Ushio said with food stuffed in her mouth.

"I ordered enough for the three of us. Don't worry…"

Suddenly, the hands flying over the pot stopped. Both Ushio and the boy were grabbing the same piece of meat with their chopsticks. Ushio narrowed her eyes at the boy, who also looked at her cautiously.

"Young man, don't you realize that you're the outsider here?" Ushio said, pulling on the meat. "We bought you food to save you from starvation, so you should have some manners and eat less!"

"I was the one that bought him food, Kanzaki-san…"

"I'm grateful to you guys, but…" the boy said, pulling the meat as well, "a man's gotta eat! I don't have any money right now, but I promise I'll thank you guys properly when I become shaman king!"

"Shaman king?"

Ushio's face became darker than before at those words. Really, everyone and anyone that has to do with that shaman tournament keep pissing her off. That explains why this young of a boy would have a guardian spirit. He seemed about as old as Yoh, but he acted way more obnoxious. The boy saw that Ushio's attention was shifted, and took the chance to win over the meat. Ushio became even more furious.

"That's right! My name is Horohoro and I'm going to become the shaman king!" the blue-haired boy said loudly while giving Ushio and Okawa a thumbs-up.

"Horohoro?" Okawa repeated. "That's a strange name."

"I'm from the Ainu tribe," Horohoro said proudly. "And this is my guardian spirit, Kororo! She's a spirit from the plains of my homeland. Isn't she cute?"

The little human-like spirit smiled and bowed courteously at Ushio and Okawa.

"Hmph. Looks like I can cook her right here in the pot."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Horohoro stood up abruptly, almost knocking over some cups and bowls.

"A—Ah! I'm sorry, please calm down!" Okawa waved his hands in front of Horohoro. If they broke any of these kitchenware, he's going to have to pay a lot.

"I want this girl to say sorry! She's been rude this whole time!"

"I'm rude? I saved your life, and I'm the one that's rude?"

"You too, Kanzaki-san, it's enough!" Okawa patted Ushio and the shoulder. He threw some cabbage and spinach into the hotpot. "You should eat some vegetables, too. They say you get bad temper when you eat too much meat."

Ushio scoffed and looked away. Horohoro also sat back down seeing that Ushio stopped. And then, the sliding door opened just a bit to reveal a nervous-looking waitress. She saw that the guests inside the room have finally quieted down, and came in with relief. The waitress handed them each a cup of suppon wine to end the dinner. The three teens sat in silence. Okawa looked at Ushio; he has never seen Ushio so angry before, and all for just some food. But it seems like she's gone back to her normal calm self now.

"Um…" Okawa decided to speak up, raising his cup. "Why don't we have a toast?"

"For what? Nothing good has happened," said Ushio.

"Well, we helped Horohoro-san…"

Ushio shot a sharp look at Horohoro, who nearly jumped as he did not expect it. She stared at him for a while, not saying a word. But in the end, she raised her cup next to Okawa's. Okawa let out a big breath that he was holding and smiled at Horohoro. Horohoro, simple-minded as he is, raised his cup with a smile as well, thinking that they've come to an understanding.

"So… Horohoro-san, what were you doing in the mountains?" asked Okawa.

"Just call me Horohoro!" said Horohoro after downing the wine. "I was making my way South to Tokyo for the shaman fights. But after I got halfway through the mountains, I got a little lost. And then at night, these little mountain spirits appeared and offered to point me directions. And after following them for a while, I got hungry. Finally, I became so hungry that I just fainted in the woods!"

Okawa turned to Ushio; he had a guess on what it was. "Kanzaki-san, the mountain spirits…"

Ushio nodded. "They're called _kodama._ Most mountains in Japan have them. They're bound inside the woods, so they get bored easily. They're childish spirits who like to play with humans. They were probably the ones making you lost, not pointing you directions."

"WHAT?" Horohoro exclaimed. "So those little bastards fooled me?"

"Kanzaki-san, do you think they're the ones that caused all the disappearances?"

"We'd be lucky if they were, but I highly doubt it. _Kodamas_ are not ill-natured spirits."

Horohoro looked at the two of them back and forth and blinked. "What are you guys talking about? Disappearances?"

Okawa explained the whole case to Horohoro, who got very excited after hearing the whole thing.

"I've decided! I'll help you guys defeat whatever's in the mountains to thank you guys for helping me!" Horohoro declared loudly as he stood up.

"Ehh? But it's going to be dangerous!" said Okawa.

"If I can't take care of something like this, how can I become shaman king?" Horohoro smiled with confidence. "Don't underestimate Kororo just because she's small! We're a strong team and we're going to help you no matter what you say!"

"Kanzaki-san…" Okawa turned to Ushio for help.

"Okay, we'll take all the help we can get," said Ushio bluntly.

"EHH?" Okawa stared at Ushio wide-eyed. The girl has never asked for other people's help before, yet she's asking so bluntly this time. Did she see some strong power in Horohoro? Or is she really that afraid of the thing inside the woods?

While Horohoro laughed obnoxiously on his side of the table, Okawa gave Ushio a look of confusion. The girl merely sipped a cup of tea and gave Okawa a look that said 'I have a plan'. Okawa couldn't help but feel that it was going to be something bad. However, since Ushio usually never messes up on her jobs, Okawa decided to silently agree to whatever Ushio was planning.

* * *

It soon became deep in the night and the trio snuck out of the inn from their room window. Okawa was at first against going into the woods at night, but this time Ushio insisted that it was the only time that they were going to see the _kodamas._ Moreover, Horohoro bravely volunteered himself to protect the other two when troubles arrive. So then, the three of them made their way into the woods as the wind whistled. As they walked in deeper, Ushio told them the plan. She told Horohoro to follow them from behind, since the _kodamas_ will probably target the newcomers Okawa and herself. Horohoro agreed to it right away, swearing to protect them from behind.

"Kanzaki-san, are you sure it's okay that we leave him behind?" Okawa asked in a hushed voice as he and Ushio moved ahead of Horohoro.

Ushio did not answer him as she took out some kind of incense from her bag. She grabbed quite a handful and lit it with a lighter. Although it looked like incense, the smoke that came out from it was thin and scentless. Ushio kept the burning incense in front of her and waved it so that it created more smoke.

"What are you doing?"

"This smoke will keep the small spirits away from us," said Ushio in a whisper, "and also hide us from that icicle-head. I really doubt that _kodamas_ were the culprit in these disappearances; it must be something more powerful. So we're using icicle-head as bait for now."

"EHH?"

"Shh! Be quiet!"

"That's horrible, Kanzaki-san!" Okawa frowned.

Ushio shrugged and just kept going. After a few minutes, the two of them were completely hidden by the smoke. Ushio motioned for Okawa to stop and look at Horohoro, who was already lost now that he couldn't find them. He didn't call for them, though, probably out of his pride. The situation then turned around so that Ushio and Okawa were following Horohoro instead. Not long after that, Ushio quickly pointed out that the _kodamas_ appeared. Okawa squinted his eyes toward Horohoro's direction, and there they were. They were glowing bodies that looked exactly like humans. They were the bodies of children, naked and hairless. They climbed the trees and ran around Horohoro, but their steps made no sounds.

"Horohoro-san is following them!" Okawa said worriedly.

"The _kodamas_ must have put him into a trance," said Ushio and gestured that they should follow along. "Stay within a safe distance, Okawa-kun. I need to get closer and make sure icicle-head doesn't lose it."

"Be careful, Kanzaki-san!"

The three of them moved along in a long line. Even from the back, Ushio could tell that Horohoro was under the power of the _kodamas. _His guardian spirit tried to shake him awake, but he could not feel it. Horohoro may be a skilled shaman, but he was not careful enough to guard his head. Unlike normal ghosts and harmless spirits, demons mess up your mind first. However, _kodamas_ were always believed to be a little bit mischievous, not evil. Ushio looked closely at the _kodamas_' strange behavior. And then she noticed it. They were not smiling or laughing like they were pulling a prank. Rather, their faces showed nervousness and terror, and they looked like they were in a hurry to take Horohoro somewhere.

"Where are they taking him…?" Ushio murmured.

The _kodamas_ lead Horohoro so deep into the woods that there were barely any light now. Ushio had to be careful where she was walking, and the pressure coming from ahead of her was making it hard to take a step. She thought that she should've probably told Okawa to head back, but she couldn't see where he was now. And then suddenly, Ushio noticed that the _kodamas _have stopped. She narrowed her eyes and tried to see what's in front of her. She couldn't see well, but it seems like they were in front of a cave. The _kodamas_ pushed Horohoro inside and ran away as quickly as they could.

Ushio immediately went in front of the cave as soon as the _kodamas_ left. She examined the entrance carefully. There were no visible barrier, but she could feel something in between the space outside and inside. She set her bag down and fished through it.

"Kanzaki-san!" Okawa's voice appeared from behind her. He'd caught up to them and saw Ushio lingering in front of the cave. "What happened?"

"Seems like the _kodamas_ were luring icicle-head into the cave, and probably other people too. The source of all the malicious atmosphere must be inside this cave," Ushio explained as she took out an old book and a bottle of ink and brush. She flipped through the pages and stopped at one which had words written around a circle. "The cave is protected by a barrier. I'm guessing that you can only go in and cannot get out. Here is a spell that nullifies barriers. Start writing it around the cave opening after I go in."

"Wh—what?" Okawa shook as Ushio handed him the things in her hands. "I—I can't do this! What if I can't do it and you're stuck in there with that demon?"

"Then I would have to hope that I can take down that demon, and then write the spell from inside," said Ushio. "If I mess with the barrier right now, it would alarm what's inside and it might flee. Count to three minutes before you start drawing."

"Wait!"

Before Okawa can put the things down to grab Ushio, she'd already stepped into the cave. The boy tightened his fists and sat down in front of the cave, counting the seconds through gritted teeth.

* * *

"Ushio! Is that you?"

In the darkness Ushio bumped into someone's back as she walked further into the cave. The boyish voice of Horohoro sounded up from in front of her. It seems like the boy broke out of his trance once the _kodamas _went far. She could only see a little bit of him from the darkness.

"Yes, it's me," said Ushio, putting a hand on Horohoro's shoulder from the back. "Can you see what's in front?"

"I can't, but Kororo can," Horohoro said, surprisingly serious. "She's telling us that whatever's inside this cave is extremely strong. You can't get out of the cave anymore, so stay me behind me if you don't wanna get hurt."

Ushio raised an eyebrow, but no one could see it. She was quite amused at the boy's heroic act.

The two of them began to move, with Horohoro following Kororo's guidance and Ushio grabbing onto his shoulder. The cave was very dark, but the temperature inside was unnaturally high. Ushio began to sweat a little bit. A drop of seat dripped down the bridge of her nose and tickled her, so she took off her hand on Horohoro's shoulder to wipe it.

"Oi!" said Horohoro immediately when Ushio removed her hand.

"Calm down, I'm still here."

"Okay, I was just making sure… Kororo said we're very close…"

Indeed, after a few more steps, they saw a red glow at the end of a turn. As they got closer, they could finally see their surroundings. There is a rotten smell in the air, and they both covered their noses as they walked. Finally, as they took the turn, a horrifying sight was in front of them.

"This—this is…!" Horohoro's mouth opened wide but he was speechless.

Ushio also looked at this deep end of the cave with an astonished expression. All over floor scattered human bones, some still had skin and meat on them. That explained the rotten smell. What made Ushio even more sick were all the human heads lying around the place. They were mostly heads that belonged to young males. With all the blood and the strange glow, Ushio and Horohoro were almost blinded by the redness in the cave.

"Ooh…" Kororo, who was flying in front of them, flew backwards behind her owner. She made a whimpering sound as she looked at a certain direction where the red glow was the brightest.

Ushio's eyes followed where Kororo was looking, and gasped at the creature that was residing in this mountain and chasing out the other weaker spirits.

It was small. It looked almost harmless. But there it was, sitting amongst all the human corpses, chewing on a piece of bone. Its whole body was red—big red eyes, red fur, red ears, and six curly red tails that Ushio could not be more familiar with.

"V—VULPIX!"

* * *

To be continued.


	5. A Wild Vulpix Appeared

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 4**

**A Wild Vulpix Appeared**

"What did you say?"

"…Nothing…"

Ushio took a deep breath. She must have shouted out what sounds like gibberish to Horohoro out of her surprise. But the creature in front of them looked exactly the same as Vulpix. Ushio wouldn't have mistaken it, since she trained one herself and evolved it into Ninetails. But it was too absurd. She had visited game shops in this world and has never found the Pokemon games, and there wasn't a TV series either. Just when Ushio thought that this world could not get any more boring, a real life Vulpix appeared. She couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of excitement, but that was quickly extinguished due to the fact that it was eating humans and that it was probably the culprit behind the disappearances.

The red fox-like animal looked up at the two intruders, and immediately, it locked its eyes on Horohoro. Ushio noticed it right away. This wannabe Vulpix wanted to eat Horohoro.

"It wants to eat you," Ushio warned.

"Hmph! Let's see it try!" Horohoro whipped up a confident smile as pulled out a snowboard from his backpack. "Kororo!"

Ushio watched Horohoro channel his spirit into his snowboard. She was a little bit surprised as she has never seen anyone channel spirits into objects before. Anna has always controlled spirits to act on their own, and she has seen Yoh perform oversoul with Amidamaru, but not into anything else. By the looks of Horohoro's stance and the snowboard, which is now emitting a strong aura, it seems like the boy could even be stronger than Yoh right now. However, it was best not to underestimate this demon in front of them.

"Eat this!" Horohoro boarded his snowboard and jumped into the air. "Scatter Sleet Shower!"

Chunks of ice formed in the air and shot toward the demon. Ushio was widened her eyes at the spectacular feat. Unlike Yoh's oversoul with Amidamaru, which only let's Amidamaru fight in his body, Horohoro's oversoul was far more suitable for fighting. But the demon did not falter at the sight of the ice blocks; it dodged all of them with incredible speed.

"What?" Horohoro was amazed that the demon dodged his attack so easily.

"It's no time to be amazed!" Ushio said. "It's coming for you!"

Just as Ushio said, the demon was making its war closer to Horohoro as it dodged the ice at the same time. Within seconds it was right in front of him, and it opened its mouth. A blast of fire shot out from the demon's mouth.

"Flamethrower?" Ushio gasped. "It already knows such a strong attack!"

Just in time, Horohoro made a barrier of ice to block the flame. However, Ushio could see that the side of the ice that the flamethrower hit was turning a reddish color. She couldn't think of anything else other than pushing Horohoro out of the way.

"Watch out!"

Ushio managed to push Horohoro a second before his block of ice exploded with the heat. But because of the scattered bones on the ground, Ushio could not get a good footing. The exploded ice pieces became boiling hot liquid, which scraped against Ushio's leg. Ushio bit down on her bottom lip from the pain. She looked at her leg and saw that her leg was badly burnt and bleeding.

"How did that happen?" Horohoro noticed Ushio's wound as well when he propped himself up from the ground. "That fire melted my ice that fast? And the water became that hot?"

"I'm not surprised… a demon's fire can be a lot more intense than natural fire…" Ushio said gravely as she ripped off a piece of cloth from her own shirt and tied up her leg.

"Dammit…" Horohoro grunted. "I told you to stay behind me…"

Ushio watched as Horohoro stood back up and moved over in front of her. She scoffed in her mind and stood up herself. "Don't bother trying to protect me when you almost got killed. I only pushed you out of the way because I wasn't prepared enough. That's the problem with you and Yoh. You all just attack, attack, attack, thinking that your guardian spirit is invincible. Sometimes you'll be dealing with something that you're just not on the same level. Like this Vulpix for example… it must be already past level 40…"

"Hey! Kororo is strong!" Horohoro retorted. "And who's Yoh?"

"You'll probably meet him one day when you get to Tokyo," said Ushio as she pulled out a long string of blue prayer beads from her bag. "Dumb people tend to attract each other."

"Oi, oi…"

"Can you trap him for me? Just a few seconds is enough."

Horohoro looked back at Ushio with suspicious eyes, but complied with her request anyway. He couldn't think of a way to beat this demon right now. Although he didn't know what kind of power she had, he'll give it a shot.

Horohoro activated his oversoul again, and used the same attack as before. The fox-like demon dodged his ice attack with ease, but Horohoro secretly gaining a good position in the air above. Once he chased the demon to a corner, he made huge ice blocks around it to block its way. The demon opened its mouth in attempt to break itself out with flames, but its whole body was tied up with Ushio's prayer beads before it could make fire. Finally, the demon looked at Ushio for the first time since they stepped into the cave. You could see anger clearly reflected in the demon's eyes as it glared at Ushio and growled.

Ushio had been following Horohoro's movements and waiting for him to trap the demon. Once the demon stopped moving, Ushio threw out the prayer beads.

"Namu daiji daihi kyuugu kyuunan…" Ushio began to chant.

The prayer beads constricted the around the demon began to tighten. The demon opened its mouth and wanted to shoot fire at Ushio, but its demonic power was restricted by Ushio's spell. Then, its legs gave out and it fell to its side. The demon cried out in pain.

"Whoa! What did you do?" Horohoro stared wide-eyed at Ushio's performance. "You don't even have a guardian spirit… how did you manage to do that?"

Ushio glared at him from the corner of her eyes. "I'm a onmyouji. I don't need a guardian spirit to exorcise a demon like this…"

"Oi… I get the feeling that you're looking down on me…"

Ushio averted her eyes back to the demon. It was jerking around on the floor, but its eyes never left Ushio's face. Even though it was in pain, its eyes still showed anger and hatred. Ushio couldn't help but wonder what made this demon come about. Nature could not have created a spirit as evil as this. And what is with the appearance of Vulpix?

As Ushio continued to chant, the demon suddenly stood back up in its feet. This surprised both Ushio and Horohoro. The demon howled and a golden light surrounded its body. Demonic power surged out from it, and within seconds, Ushio's prayer beads shattered into pieces. Out of instinct, Horohoro pulled Ushio away and up into the air on his snowboard. If he had been any slower, Ushio would have been burned into a crisp.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Horohoro exclaimed while he dodged some rocks falling down from the impact of the demon's explosion.

"It broke out of my spell…" Ushio said incredulously. "That's impossible… Anna used the same spell to defeat Zenki and Kouki… unless this demon is even stronger than those shikigami…"

"WHAT DO WE DO NOW?"

Ushio and Horohoro ran around the cave, dodging the demon's attacks. However, this time, the demon seemed to be directing its attacks at Ushio. Her last attack on the demon must have pissed it off. Ushio surfed through her brain to come up with another tactic to deal with the demon. If her past life taught her anything, it was to remain calm no matter how bad the situation. But when your life is on the line, it was more difficult to do that than simply saying it. Luckily for her, Horohoro seemed to be quite the heroic character; he kept trying to lure the demon away from her by himself.

"Dammit!" Horohoro barely dodged another fire attack as he flew toward Ushio on his snowboard. "I'm running out of furyoku! What are we gonna do?"

"I cannot think of anything…" Ushio said gravely, "I guess running is our only choice. Okawa-kun should have already broken the barrier…"

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT EARLIER?"

"I don't like leaving things unfinished," said Ushio as she turned and got ready to run. "I don't wanna admit that I can't exorcise this demon, but a fact is a fact. I'm not strong enough right now…"

"…" Horohoro looked at Ushio silently, and eventually turned around as well.

The demon seemed to have realized that the two of them planned to make a run for it. It charged up its powers and was ready to get them both with a huge blow. Ushio gave Horohoro a look and the boy nodded. She counted to three, and they took off. At the same time, the demon dashed forward and released a flame ball bigger than anything they've experienced today.

Ushio felt her heart pound fast and hard. The heat behind her was closing in and she'd realized that she really might not make it. This was the third time that she was so close to death, but it surprised her that she didn't feel that scared. She gritted her teeth and ran as fast as she could; if anything, now is not the time to be scared. And then, she felt the movement next to her suddenly stop. Out of instinct, she turned her head to see what happened. And from the corner of her eyes she saw a glimpse of Horohoro's smile before she ran past him. She wanted to believe that she'd never heard what Horohoro was murmuring to himself.

"I'm the one that cannot admit defeat here. Not now…"

A loud explosive sound was heard. Ushio felt her feet become heavy. Idiot! she thought to herself as she slowed down. The heat so close behind her was not there anymore. The pressure in the cave was gone as well. The demon must've used up all its power. She tightened her fist on her chest; and braced herself as she turned around.

Horohoro was on the ground with burnt clothing, bleeding from several places on his body. He was scorched, and pierced by shards of ice. Around the cave remained a thick layer of ice that hadn't been broken through. Next to Horohoro's head was Kororo, crying and pulling on his hair to wake him up. The demon looked tired; it was panting heavily, but it stilled slowly made its way toward the unconscious Horohoro.

Why? Why did he do that?

Ushio cursed in her head as she walked toward Horohoro. The demon bared its teeth; it wanted to eat Horohoro right now. Ushio stepped in front of Horohoro and took out her prayer beads. The demon looked at them in caution and attempted to run, but it was already too tired to escape. Ushio got it by the neck, and it immediately got down on its knees. Ushio looked down at it with a calm face, while it glared with no intent to give up struggling.

"You have no more power," said Ushio, "you want to eat Horohoro so that you can get your powers back, right?"

Ushio sat down in front of the demon, with Horohoro behind her. She could feel faintly some coldness from her back. It gave her a bit of chills.

"You know, I'm the same. Ever since I was little, whether it be school or exorcism I wanted to be the best. I was never a team player; I would step all over other people to get to the top. Today, I was clearly unable to defeat you," Ushio gripped her prayer beads tightly, "and it really damn hurts for me to admit it, but this nimrod behind me decides to take you on even though he knows he can't do it. And now… you're looking at me with those eyes…

It pisses me off."

The demon growled; its red eyes were frighteningly bright.

"I can exorcise you right now, but I won't. When I, Kanzaki Ushio, do things, I do not cheat or take the easy way out. That is my work ethic. So in the mean time while I get stronger, you're gonna have to wait like a nice little doggie, then we can settle our business."

With that, the demon seemed to have stopped struggling. First, its eyes were filled with confusion. And then, it looked at Ushio's eyes intently like it was trying to validate her.

Ushio searched through her bag for any type of container. Then she found a half-drank bottle of tea that Okawa had bought for her before. She twisted the cap open and poured everything out, and with one hand still holding the prayer beads she put the other hand to her mouth. She bit hard on her finger and blood started to flow out from it. With the blood, she drew a pentagram on the bottle.

"I have never done this before, but I read it in a really old book in Yohmei's study. The five points of the pentagram channels the power of the five elements in nature. Onmyoujis use this to control spirits…"

"It's a little wet in here, but that's what you get for eating so many innocent humans."

* * *

After finally seeing Ushio come out of the cave, Okawa made the decision to declare that this weekend in Hakkoda has ended in complete disaster. With a completely beat-up Horohoro on her back and no sight of any other survivors, plus a bottle glowing a dangerous red, Okawa's heart almost sunk all the way into the bottom of the mountain. However, maybe it's also safe to say that they were all lucky to have lived through this crisis.

The hospital arrangement for Horohoro was made quickly and easily through Okawa's hands. While Okawa made sure that Horohoro got to the best hospital in Aomori, Ushio went to an old marketplace and bought an expensive gourd. When Okawa saw the gourd later, he complimented on how well the gourd was made and how fine the material was, but after Ushio told him that the demon was now sealed in there and showed him the big bloody pentagram on the bottom of the gourd he was immediately repulsed.

"You didn't have to use your blood again, did you?"

"The seal would be stronger if I drew it with my blood," Ushio said with a yawn, "now can I finally catch some sleep?"

Ushio knocked out at the hotel for over fourteen hours, and she woke up to a great feast, again paid by Okawa. After she had fully rested, the two of them made their way down the mountains. Before leaving Aomori, they visited Horohoro at the hospital, who has already regained his consciousness.

"It's amazing that you woke up after only a day with those injuries," Okawa said.

Horohoro, bandaged up like a mummy, grinned widely as if he was never hurt. "Are you kidding me? This is nothing! I'm going to be shaman king after all!"

"You would've died if I had just left you there."

"If you're trying to make me thank you for saving my life, that's not gonna happen!" Horohoro glared at the young girl, who got out of the whole thing almost uninjured.

Ushio shrugged and came next to the bed, and pulled a chair next to it. She gave Okawa a look, and the latter understood right away. He gave the Ainu boy a few more get-well wishes and left the room. The hospital room fell into silence and Horohoro put away his smile.

"So you did not kill that demon in the end…?" Kororo had already told him everything she saw.

Ushio shook her head. "I sealed it in a gourd."

"Why didn't you kill it? What's the point of sealing up a demon when you know that it's evil?"

"It might sound a little crazy to you, but just by looking at its appearance makes me not want to kill it…"

After all, Ninetales had always been her favorite pokemon.

Horohoro looked at the girl incredulously and asked, "You don't plan on making that demon your guardian spirit, do you?"

"That depends on how well I can get along with it from now on," Ushio whipped up a faint smile. "So to thank me for saving your life, you have to tell me about that _furyoku_ thing that you were saying before."

"HEY! I WAS THE ONE THAT SAVED YOU!"'

"It almost ate you. It was gonna bite you right in the face."

"YOU'RE EXAGGERATING!"

"Besides, you owe me for the hospital bill too…"

"YOU WEREN'T THE ONE THAT PAID! I KNOW YOU WEREN'T!"

The nurses passing by the room all looked over with either curiosity or annoyance. Okawa bowed at them continuously in apology. He sighed as he listened to Ushio's one-sided conversation with Horohoro. Something big must have happened in the cave to make Ushio act this way. He could somewhat guess what it was. Yoshida Kosuke was not saved, the demon was not exorcised, and Ushio is now asking someone for a favor because it really did upset her. Kanzaki Ushio was really the most selfish person he has ever known. He should be the one that's upset; he can't imagine how sad Mr. and Mrs. Yoshida would feel when they learn about their son's death.

Not to mention that he has a very, very bad feeling about this demon that Ushio brought back with her.

* * *

To be continued.

* * *

A/N: I'm so sorry about the slowness of my updates! I'm trying to write this story every day, but some serious writer's block is hitting me. Please bear with me!

On a side note, I'm very tempted to make this story HoroXOC, even though originally I had another pairing in mind.

Please review!


	6. Ushio's First Oversoul

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 5: Ushio's First Oversoul**

Mona Geraldine had always been good with her brain since she was a little kid. However, up until she was halfway through grade school, her body could not keep up with her brain. You see, Mona had a speaking problem when she was little. She had a communication disorder. So during grade school, where all of the classes were very interactive, Mona's classmates often thought she couldn't speak at all. She was what they called "special". So she began to speak less, even when her problem was fixed by a speech therapist later on, she still didn't want to speak. She did her own things quietly, and got good grades, but people still thought that she "had problems".

Fortunately, when Mona started going to middle school, most of the students there were not from the same grade school as her. It was a time to start anew, but Mona liked being quiet. And then, she met Lisa.

"Whoa! You got 100 points?"

Lisa was just another girl who happened to sit next to Mona in math class. Lisa was the complete opposite of Mona. She was very pretty; she had the dark, long, flowy hair that all the other girls dreamed of. She always looked perfect. A lot of boys approached her, but it seemed like she had never gone out with any of them. Based on first impressions, she wasn't the type of person that Mona would try to talk to.

"I didn't think you were so smart. You never talk in class," Lisa was the one who started to talk to Mona first. "Dang it! I thought I was going to be number 1 in this class for sure!"

Lisa grinned and showed Mona her test. 98 points; only one mistake. In return, Mona showed her the right way to solve the problem, and also told her about her first impressions. Lisa laughed.

"I don't like those popular and plastic girls either," said Lisa, "but it feels pretty awesome to be smarter AND prettier than them!"

For the first time in years, Mona finally felt that she actually wanted to be friends with someone. She finally understood the exact meaning of someone being "her cup of tea."

* * *

"You're saying that this pathetic little mutt is your guardian spirit?"

Both Ushio and the red-eyed demon glared at Anna.

"It's not a mutt. Its name is Vulpix," said Ushio as she poured hot water into a teapot. Ushio has recently named her new guardian spirit after the pokemon that it freakishly resembled. But every time she said that name, the demon would growl at her. "Besides, weren't you the one that always wanted me to have a guardian spirit? It's just out of power right now. You know, even the mountain spirits were afraid of it!"

Anna looked down at Vulpix. "Why don't you give it some furyoku and show me then?"

Ushio twitched and almost spilled some water out. "I'm still figuring out how to use that thing…"

"Yoh still doesn't know how to use it either…"

Ushio turned her head to look at Anna with astonishment. The young blonde was looking out the window with her usual expressionless face, but the first batch of tea in her cup was completely untouched. It's rare for Anna not to say something condescending at a time like this. The air became slightly awkward as Ushio brought the teapot over. She sat down and poured tea in the cup in front of her. The awkwardness made her want to leave, but the tea was a very expensive brand that Anna's master sent over by airmail.

"Um… he'll learn it soon…" Ushio managed to come up with something to say.

"Of course he will. Worry about yourself first before you worry about someone else, idiot."

"Anna, has anyone ever told you that you're a real bitch?"

"Never."

Ushio narrowed her eyes and calmed herself with the hot tea. The silence between them continued on for a while. And finally, the sound of the front door opening was heard.

"I'm home, Anna!" Yoh's voice came lazily through the hallway, and when he got to the living room he saw Ushio. "Oh, Ushio! You're here too?"

"Good afternoon, Anna-dono, Ushio-dono," said Amidamaru as he casually floated behind Yoh.

A guest that Ushio has never met before also came into the room. Ushio was surprised by how little he was but didn't show it on her face. She wondered how old he was. Five? Since when did Yoh start to be friends with little kids? Yoh didn't have friends to begin with. She didn't think it was a good idea for Yoh's first friend to be such a little kid. They're a pain to take care of.

"Ah, you must be Kanzaki-san! Yoh has always talked about you!" the little boy said.

_This kid actually has manners?_ Ushio thought. "And you are?"

"This is Oyamada Manta. My classmate and my friend," said Yoh, "but I've already told you about him, Ushio…"

Ushio shrugged.

"Ahaha, that's okay, Yoh-kun," Manta laughed dryly, thinking that at least this girl didn't call him a manju like Anna did when they first met. Then he noticed the red fox-like spirit next to Ushio, while it also noticed him and gave him a vicious look. Manta took a step back and gulped. "Oh… Kanzaki-san, your… guardian spirit doesn't look very friendly."

"Oh! You got a guardian spirit?" Yoh looked at Vulpix with great interest. "It's a cute one, isn't it! That's the kind of spirit that a girl should have!"

"I don't know about that, Yoh-dono," Amidamaru looked at Vulpix carefully and said, "Fox spirits were feared ever since my era because they were so cunning. Even if this one is small."

"Yeah… fox spirits are known to be good at disguises, right?" Manta noted.

Vulpix growled at Amidamaru, but Ushio smacked it and grabbed it by the neck. It struggled hard, but Ushio forcefully shoved it back into her gourd. "I know how dangerous it is. But I've got this under control."

"Anyway, Ushio," Yoh plopped down next to Ushio, smiling lazily as usual, "we got these free tickets to the movies for tonight. It's some old Chinese film called 'Fist of Fury'… I don't know what that is, but Manta is excited to see it. Do you wanna come with us? There're only three tickets though…"

"No, thanks," Ushio declined instantly, "I'd rather go home and watch those stupid reality TV shows than paying for the movies."

"You are going with us," said Anna, "and you're going to buy me the hotdog and soda combo, except it's going to be a large soda instead of regular."

"Don't say that as if I'm SUPPOSED to do it!" Ushio threw a punch at Anna's face, but it was dodged easily. "Kids like you should just sip on some water and hope that you won't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the movie."

"Hey, hey! What's wrong with you two today? You're fighting before dinner even started," Yoh stepped in between the two girls and tried to stop their fight once again. It's become such a regular thing that Yoh was getting a little tired of it. Of course, he couldn't actually say that in front of Anna.

"Don't worry, guys," Manta also stepped in after Yoh, and only if after Yoh. "I will pay for Kanzaki-san's ticket! And whatever food you guys want. I was the one that really wants to watch this movie, after all!"

Ushio retrieved her fist and sat back into her seat. "If you insist."

The boys in the room, including Amidamaru, all let out a breath of relief. There's never a day that passes without some sort of fight between the two girls. You'd think that at least Ushio would give it up first since she's the older one, but she's just as childish when it has to do with Anna. Good thing Yoh had warned Manta about Ushio beforehand and taught him how to persuade her with food.

Still, Manta was still deeply impressed by the fact that Yoh was able to survive having grown up with these two girls.

* * *

Yoh and Manta were probably the only excited people in the theater. Oh, and Amidamaru, possibly. Ushio resisted the urge to roll her eyes as Yoh gasped and wowed at the actor's kung fu skills. Ushio didn't buy any of these action movies stuff, but she couldn't help but think that the sounds that this actor was making sounded too much like Bruce Lee, while his hair looked more like Jackie Chan.

When the four kids walked out of the movie theater, it was quite dark outside. Yoh and Manta continued to talk about the movie. Manta knew a lot about the main actor. His name was Pai Long and he was a real kung fu fighter. He didn't have any stuntman do his fighting scenes for him. However, the action star died very young. His reason of death was still unknown, but many people suspected it being murder. Ushio wasn't surprised by this; when you're rich and famous, there's bound to be people out there who will want to take things from you. She was feeling bored and wanted to hurry home when, suddenly, she noticed something above her head.

"What's wrong, Ushio?" Yoh asked as he noticed her stop and looked up at the sky. A black crow was circling above her. And then, it flew away after a while.

"Black crow? That's a bad omen!" Manta yelped.

"That's just a superstition," said Ushio, "it's probably just a normal crow."

"You can never be sure," said Anna coldly, "maybe you're gonna die soon. You might be cursed from one of your jobs recently."

"I'm pretty sure I would know if I'm cursed with something," Ushio glared at Anna.

"Maybe we should go and find out what it is," said Yoh, "Anna's just concerned about you."

"As if," Anna scoffed as she turned around. "I'm just giving her a logical advice. If she doesn't care about her life, she can die from that curse for all I care. I look forward to having you as my guardian spirit, Ushio."

"…" Ushio narrowed her eyes with discontent, and finally stepped toward the direction where the crow flew. "I'll check it out on my own. It's probably nothing anyway. You guys go your way and I'll go straight home afterwards."

With that, Ushio hurried off into the dark alley.

"Ushio, wait—"

"Let her go by herself, Yoh," Anna said, pulling Yoh back by the arm, "she has to learn the hard way that she cannot do _everything_ alone."

"But what if she gets into real trouble and gets hurt?" Yoh asked worriedly.

"Worry about yourself before worrying about others," said Anna as she looked ahead at the crosswalk in front of them. "We have company."

A tall and slender girl stood in their way. With the moon behind her, you could barely see her face. Beside her stood a big man. His face was mostly covered with a talisman. Any way you looked at them, they didn't seem friendly at all. Yoh could feel the murder intent coming from the girl, and while he braced himself for trouble, he quickly wished for Ushio's safety in his head.

* * *

Contrary to Yoh's worries, Ushio was casually walking through the night streets. The crow was already gone and there was nothing unusual about the town. Deciding that it was all for naught, Ushio turned to the direction of her home. It was quite late already, and she probably missed the last bus from Funbari Hills to Tokofushi. So Ushio took her time walking home. Because there were many clouds in the sky, the night was quiet and dark. That didn't bother Ushio; she didn't sense anything demon-like around her. However, demons weren't the only things that could pose dangers at night.

"Who's there?" Ushio twisted around, having heard footsteps behind her.

To answer her question, a group of big and dirty men emerged from each corner of the street. Some of them held pipes or pocket knives in their hands, and a couple of them actually had guns. Ushio eyed the weapons with caution; this was the first time that she ran into thugs. While thinking that it's so dumb that something like this would actually happen to her, she thought about what she could do. She didn't have anything with her that could actually work against guns. The only thing she had was her Vulpix, but she couldn't really control it yet, since she couldn't use furyoku.

But what other choice did she have?

"Don't move!" one of the thugs with a goatee said when Ushio reached for the gourd she kept strapped to her belt. He pointed his gun at her and said, "I don't wanna hurt ya; girls worth more money when they're sold unharmed."

The other thugs snickered and some even snorted. Ushio felt disgusted at how clichéd everything was playing out, and from the looks of it, the one who had just talked to her was the boss of this group.

"Okay, I won't move," Ushio raised her hands above her head. "What are you planning to do?"

The goatee man smirked, pleased at how obedient Ushio was being. "Hm…there's no point of ya knowing, but it wouldn't hurt telling ya. We're gonna get into my truck, get rid of that ugly little uniform of yours, and we're gonna sell ya to the old geezer that would pays us the most for ya."

Ushio had to refrain from rolling her eyes. "Okay, lead the way."

The goatee man was taken back a little, but gestured his men to keep an eye on her. The men stood on all sides of Ushio, pointing their weapons at her. The goatee man lead the way.

As they walked through many different small alleys, the scenery began to change. More and more empty factory buildings could be seen. Ushio carefully hid her hands into her jacket so that the thugs around her didn't notice. Then, she slowly pulled her gourd into her hand.

"What are you trying to do?" one of the thugs yelled and grabbed Ushio's wrist.

"I'm sorry," said Ushio as she loosened her hand, "I was just feeling thirsty."

The gourd dropped to the ground and shattered into pieces. Vulpix's body had a red glow in the dark night. It looked around at the thugs who were all shocked to see it. Then, it looked back at Ushio, who was still held by one of the thugs.

"What…? Did that just appear out of nowhere?"

"Are you stupid? Nothing can appear out of nowhere!"

"What's a wild fox doing in the city?"

"Hey, hey! What's with all the ruckus?" the goatee guy in the lead turned back from hearing the commotion. He saw the little fox and raised an eyebrow. "You guys scared of a little mutt?"

Vulpix growled at the man.

"Hmph!" the goatee man glared at Ushio and pointed his gun at her again. "It's yours, isn't it? I don't know where you hid it before, but don't try anything funny."

Ushio merely glanced at the man's gun for a couple of seconds and looked down at Vulpix. She reached out her hand at it, and looked at it in its eyes.

"I really hate that I have to do this, but it's a fact that I haven't mastered how to use furyoku, so even if this is a huge bet, it's better than dying here without trying…" Ushio said, her voice almost unnoticeably shaky, "Use my body and power as you like; I'm ready for any kind of result, but I trust that you are strong enough to take down all of them."

"What the hell? Is she talking to the fox?"

"Boss, I think we got a crazy one…"

Vulpix looked at Ushio quietly, but its eyes were sharp. Just like they were when the two of them faced off in the cave. And then, stepped unto Ushio's hand.

"Hey! I said nothing funny—"

"Vulpix, hitodama mode…" Ushio muttered and the fox in her hand suddenly turned into a ghostly fireball with the fox's face still visible on it. She put it next to her chest and pushed it in. "Hyoui-Gattai!"

A golden light illuminated from Ushio's body. It was so bright that everyone near her had to close their eyes. Then, the light began to dim down, and the goatee man was the first to open his eyes. His jaws dropped at the sight in front of him; he didn't know what just happened. The young girl in front of him earlier had totally changed. Even though her body was still glowing, he could clearly see the changes. The girl's black hair turned long and golden. The normal junior high school body now stood more than 6 feet tall. But the part that sent the thugs most fear was the cold but ferocious red eyes that seemed to look at all of them at once.

"Hmph… well-said, Kanzaki Ushio…" 'Ushio' began to speak, but her voice had changed completely as well. It was now deep and smooth, like a grown-up male. "All those who admit their weakness and powerlessness are allowed to kneel down and follow me, Tamamo no Mae, and live abiding my rules…"

The thugs were all speechless facing this strange person. Even though they didn't know who 'it' was, but the air of supremacy around 'it' almost made them kneel down and obey 'its' words.

"Wha—this must be some trick!" the goatee man began to shoot.

"Chi—Chigu-san! Your arm!"

The goatee man named Chigu looked at his arm at his subordinate's words, but where was it? His arm was missing and a huge amount of blood splashed out from where his arm was supposed to be. At that sight, Chigu screamed. And all the other thugs screamed as well when they saw 'Ushio' appear behind their boss.

"You dare challenge Tamamo no Mae with that kind of useless weapon?" 'Ushio' smiled sadistically down at Chigu, who was too scared to turn around.

"Hmph, pathetic little bug…"

Chigu felt a burning sensation from his back. He couldn't even begin to feel scared before all he could feel was pain.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA—"

A fearsome laughter rang in the night, but no one was able to hear it except the ones who were present at the empty factories. But none of them survived to tell the tale.

Only one man, who had been watching since the very beginning, would know what happened in every detail. He stood at the top of the tallest factory, but his facial expression could not be seen. A black crow stood beside him, watching the same scene in front of them.

"That idiot…"

* * *

To be continued.

* * *

A/N: Here is another very late update *bows* I hope you all forgive me! Tamamo no Mae is from a Japanese folklore, but there are many different versions of it. This is sort of a combination of different ones that I thought would work. You will find out more about him later.

Thanks for reading and please review!


	7. Business Contract

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 06**

**A Business Contract**

"What…is going on over there?"

Manta muttered the question in everyone's head as he fell to the ground. A strange red light was glowing from an industrial district not too far from where they were. And then, a huge fire burst out from the red light. Even though they were so far away, Manta felt weak in the knees, and for some reason he felt that the source of the red light was something bad and powerful.

Yoh had just finished fighting with the corpse of Pai Long, who was controlled by Tao Ren's older sister, Tao Jun. The two enemies have realized their wrong and decided to retreat when the fire started. All the people present were watching it happen. Their shocked faces were illuminated with a reddish glow.

"Isn't that the direction where Ushio went?" Yoh exclaimed, "If something happened… let's go, guys!"

Anna did not stop Yoh this time. Her usual cold expression was a bit stiffer this time.

The group hurriedly ran over toward the red light. But when they got there, no one was there except for a mess of fresh human corpses, all burnt to crisps.

* * *

Ushio opened her eyes and saw a familiar ceiling. She felt relieved that she recognized it as the one belonging to her apartment, and she was in her bed. However, her head hurt to the point that she thought it was going to split in two. She tried to remember what had happened. She had faint images overlaid by a shade of red, and a male voice ringing in her head. She tried to sit up, but she couldn't get any strength from her body.

"I'd never thought that you would do something that stupid, Ushio."

Ushio turned her neck slowly to the sound of a man's voice. She knew who it was, and she was ready for a long lecture.

"Mikihisa…"

"Letting a _demon_ have full control over your whole body? That's not even Hyoui-Gattai anymore; I thought you would have more sense than that." Mikihisa said, his voice sounded angry through his mask, and Ushio was glad that she didn't have to see his facial expression. "Not to mention how powerful this demon was. It was going to take your body, you know? If I hadn't driven it out of your body, your soul would eventually die inside your body!"

"…" Ushio had nothing to retort with. She had expected those things before she gave away the control of her body. It was probably the riskiest decision she has ever made, but she really ran out of choices that time.

"Where is it now…?"

Mikihisa paused in silence, and then let out a deep sigh. "Thanks to you, it now has enough power to release its true form. It is too powerful now; I cannot seal it with any kind of spell. But it is here. At least it is not out there destroying the world…"

"Hmph, simple human! Do you think that my desire is as low as to destroy the world?"

Ushio shot up from her bed as she recognized the voice that came from her bedroom door. She remembered nothing about the night before but the smooth, deep voice, which called itself "Tamamo no Mae". When she sat up, the creature that appeared in front of her was a beautiful golden fox with nine tails, too big to be categorized with any existing species in the world. Its posture was straight and upright, but it also showed a bit of carelessness, an aura of a great leader. However, the one thing that Ushio could not stop thinking about was how familiar this creature looked with something deep within her memory.

"Vulpix, you evolved into Ninetales!"

"My name is not Vulpix, you tiny bug!" the fox said with a calm voice, but there was a bit of annoyance in it. "I am Tamamo no Mae, highest of all demons in this world."

"Tamamo no Mae…" Ushio muttered the name as information surfaced in her head. She remembered reading about a legend about a beautiful, wise palace woman in the feudal era Japan. She looked toward Mikihisa for confirmation, who nodded in return.

"It surprised me too; legends told that it had been exorcised long time ago," Mikihisa said gravely. "The nine-tailed fox demon that appeared as a palace woman during the rule of Emperor Konoe. It was said that she could answer anything that anyone asked. Her wisdom and incomparable beauty captured the emperor's heart, so he made her into one of his concubines and kept her close to him. Until the emperor fell into an illness that no doctor can cure, and he hired some spiritual doctors who finally realized that the emperor's favorite concubine was a demon. The fox was chased out from the palace by onmyouji's, and it was finally killed and its body turned into stone."

The golden fox growled at Mikihisa. "Hmph! It is just like you humans to assume that you have won. I've merely metamorphosed into a rock, and they believed that I died. It will take more than just some little onmyouji's to kill me."

"But one of them almost got you," Ushio pointed out, "You were weakened to the point that you couldn't go back to your fox form for hundreds of years. You had to recover slowly by consuming humans and hide in the mountains. I could've exterminated you so many times already."

"Silence, bug, I could have destroyed you from inside your body as well. You are very lucky to be alive," the fox stood up on all fours and glared at Ushio, who merely brushed it off.

"That is why my question here is: why haven't you killed me yet?" Ushio pointed a finger at herself. "It's true that Mikihisa drove you out of my body, but he cannot hold you off for long. Why are you still here?"

Mikihisa sent a glare to Ushio, who couldn't see it through his mask anyway.

The fox made a sound that sounded like a scoff. "The idea still bewilders me, but I cannot change the fact that your body is the most compatible with my spirit, even more compatible than that woman in the palace. You should feel honored that a tiny body such as yours could ever contain my power. Of course, this procedure will damage the body if you try to resist. If you do not agree on this deal, I can kill you either way. It would be wise of you to free your powerless soul and hand your body over to me…"

"Why do you crave to possess a human body?" Mikihisa cut in to ask his question. "Don't you think yourself higher than us?"

"That is not any of your business," the fox looked toward Ushio, "what do you say, bug?"

Ushio did not answer right away, but she stared at the fox with a look of deep thought. The way she pursed her lips showed that she was seriously considering this. Mikihisa saw the look on her face and was surprised that she would think on it at all.

"Don't, Ushio, you know that if he takes your body, your soul would vanish forever," said Mikihisa sternly, even though Ushio should know that already.

"Can you give us a minute in private?" Ushio asked, ignoring Mikihisa's warning.

Ushio's outrageous actions put Mikihisa in complete shock. He had known her since she was a baby, but he has never seen her this senseless before. In his head he thought of all these things that he could shout at her with, but in the end, when looking at her stubborn face, he knew that she wouldn't make decisions upon other people's opinions. Even when she was learning from Yohmei, she only learned the basics and practiced in her own ways.

With a sigh, Mikihisa left the room.

As the door clicked shut, Ushio slid out of her bed and walked to speak to the fox face to face. She hid it very well from her face, but she was feeling extremely excited to see look at the fox closely. The fox that resembled Ninetales was even more beautiful than in any of its representations in the games. Its red eyes were like gems.

"Tamamo," she said, not looking away from the fox's eyes.

"Tamamo-_sama_," the fox corrected.

"Tamamo, you may have control over my body, but only under one condition."

The fox scoffed. "What makes you think that you can place these conditions on me?"

"Because a compatible body for your soul is hard to come by. According to yourself, a body as good as mine didn't come for hundreds of years, right?" Ushio said sharply. "You can have this body once you help me find one person—she's probably a demon just like you."

"Who is she?"

"I don't know. I know how she looks like, but I have no idea what she is."

"Hmph! As an onmyouji, you're saying that you don't know what demon you are dealing with?"

"I'll admit that I don't, but I have been researching, and recently I heard about something that might be able to take me straight to that demon," Ushio's face darkened as she lowered her head. it looked like she was still in deep thought about this whole thing, but it also looked like she determined to do anything at all. "Do you know about the Great Spirit?"

"I know of no such spirit that would refer to themselves with that name in _my_ presence."

"You can just say 'no', okay? Your ego is suffocating me in this small room," Ushio narrowed her eyes, "Anyway, it's a very powerful spirit and all the shamans in the world are gathering in a tournament to 'make their wish come true' or something. I figured that tournament would be a hot spot for getting intel, unlike blindly looking around in Tokofushi. I heard that all expenses in the tournament are paid by the tournament hosts, so this might be a great chance. The other details are unimportant to you, and I just need you to help me fight. When my end of the deal is met, you can have my body."

"How do I know if that demon you speak of really exists?"

"You don't. You'll just have to bet on it," said Ushio with a smirk. "Just like how I'm betting that you've waited far too long to give up on this body and kill me right here and now."

* * *

"What were you thinking, Ushio?! How can you just sell your body to a demon?!"

Manta was surprised by how loudly Yoh spoke to Ushio. Yoh has always been very friendly to everyone; he almost never put down his smile, let alone yell at someone. But he had to admit that Ushio was making a really bad decision. Even little kids would know not to make a deal with a demon. He peeked at the demon Tamamo, who looked completely different since the last time that he saw it, but looked away quickly from the dangerous feeling that it gave off.

Shortly after Mikihisa had left Ushio's home, Yoh, Anna, and Manta came over. They were relieved at first that Ushio had not been injured. But when they heard about Ushio's deal with the fox demon, the atmosphere became very intense.

"Relax, Yoh, it's _my_ body that I'm wagering, not yours," said Ushio as she sipped on the tea that she made.

Yoh widened his eyes at the words that Ushio said. He couldn't believe how cruel Ushio was being. To herself and all of her friends.

"Ushio… that demon is unlike those other ones you've encountered before…" said Yoh, his voice low and sounded hurt. "That demon… he used your body last night and killed eight people. Are you okay with that? Letting him use your body to murder?"

Ushio continued to sip on her tea quietly, but her eyes were fixed on the snacks on the table. She was aware of how dangerous Tamamo was. She knew that she had killed people for the first time in her life last night, but she forced herself to ignore it. Perhaps it was all the deaths she had seen already through two lifetimes; she was able to unsee things in her head that she didn't want to see. If there was one thing that she learned, it was that she can't lose sight of what her goal was. For 14 years in this life, she was beginning to get used to going to school in Tokofushi, exorcising spirits for a living, going to Yoh and Anna's place on a daily basis, and living as Kanzaki Ushio. But the fact is that she is not Kanzaki Ushio. It's just the name of a body that her soul lives in.

"Ushio!"

"Shut up, Yoh, leave things as it is," Anna stopped Yoh after staying quiet all this time. She stared at Ushio's calm face, who did not look back at her, and said, "it's about time she finds a guardian spirit strong enough to be in the tournament."

"You're right, Anna, I'm going to be in the tournament. But not to help Yoh; I'm doing it for my own sake."

"It was just a kind offer. Yoh will defeat you in the tournament anyway."

"I doubt that a samurai spirit can defeat a thousand year old fox demon," Ushio glared at Anna, who poured herself a cup of tea as well. "Right, Tamamo?"

"It's Tamamo-_sama_, you lowly insect," yawned the fox spirit.

"Don't speak too soon," Anna gulped down her tea and stood up nonchalantly. "Yoh's already got his Oracle Bell, and is set for his first fight in a couple of days. We'll see you in the tournament—if you even qualify."

Anna pulled Yoh away and made her way out of the front door. Ushio didn't see them out. She didn't really feel bad for saying those things to Yoh and Anna. After all, she wasn't supposed to exist in this world at all.

Quietly, Ushio cleaned up the dishes. Tamamo sat still and watched her behavior with interest.

"All right, Tamamo…" she said after cleaning up. "Let's go get us an Oracle Bell… whatever that is."

"It's Tamamo-_sama_."

* * *

_**TBC**_

* * *

A/N: Sorry for such a late update/short chapter! I've been super busy with a lot of things lately, please forgive me!


	8. Split-Tailed Cat

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 7**

**Split-Tailed Cat**

Location: Tokofushi Bridge; Time: midnight. It was an eerie night where the whole moon was hidden by thick black clouds. The residents of Tokofushi rarely went anywhere near the bridge at night because of all the suicide stories that linked to the bridge. What people were too ignorant to notice is that the water in the stream under the bridge was not nearly deep enough to kill anyone. However, it was still the most deserted place in Tokofushi. Therefore, even when Peter, a shaman from overseas with a relatively strong guardian spirit, screamed for her life, no one could notice.

"Im—im—impossible!" The tall, middle-aged shaman crawled on the cold cement, sweating like a pig and shaking as if he'd seen zombies. His right leg was burnt to a crisp. "How can my guardian spirit be defeated?"

Approaching Mark was a young girl with such intense furyoku that he could not look at her in the face. Next to the girl was a big golden fox, who has got a human spirit pinned under its claws.

"He might be a good leader, but considering his combat abilities, I don't understand why you'd choose him as your guardian spirit…" Ushio said with her arms crossed in front of her chest, "but it's nice to see King Arthur in person, even if he's just a ghost now."

A week had passed since Ushio made Tamamo no Mae into her guardian spirit. Ushio had successfully obtained an Oracle Bell from a tournament official named Silva, who didn't seem too fond of her when they met. Overall, she felt that she had made a right decision of recruiting Tamamo as her guardian spirit, even though it's going to cost her her body eventually. But so far, Tamamo has been unbeatable.

"You've gone overboard again, Tamamo-_sama_. He already lost by losing his oversoul; you didn't have to burn off his leg."

Ushio finally started to add honorifics to Tamamo's name, because she got annoyed of him continuously correcting her. However, Tamamo was still displeased by the sarcastic tone that Ushio uses while calling his name.

"I will do as I please, bug."

"No, you won't, or else I'm never feeding you my furyoku ever again," Ushio rolled her eyes without letting Tamamo see her. "And let that spirit go. He's far more famous than you in an international level."

"You said this tiny worm was a king?" the fox leant down to scrutinize the dead spirit of King Arthur. "Pathetic. I was never impressed with the blue-eyed race when they came into Edo in the Azuchi Period..."

"Don't say that, Tamamo-sama, a racist will never be a great person. I also think you're going to help me more during my history tests."

Ushio kindly called the ambulance for the poor foreign shaman, and set the ghost of Arthur free. She glanced at her watch and sighed.

"The tournament officials really choose bad times. I have school tomorrow."

* * *

"KANZAKI-SAN!"

The students who remained in the classroom during lunch break all looked toward their classroom door at the restrained exclamation. They watched as their rarely angered student council president stomp toward the quiet girl that sat next to the window. Ushio, the one who was being addressed, did not look away from her lunch box. The boy stopped next to Ushio's desk and crossed his arms. Finally, the girl looked up from her food.

"Ara, Okawa-kun, it's rare to see you during lunch break!" Ushio said with a fake surprised tone. "You're usually helping the teachers with stuff."

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm here for," Okawa leant down to Ushio's level and said in a hushed voice, "I told you NOT to bring weird spirits to school!"

Okawa and Ushio glanced toward the back of the classroom, where a big golden fox spirit sat sleeping. The kind of aura that the fox gave off was very familiar to Okawa, and it didn't take him long to figure out it was the same spirit that Ushio had brought back from Hakkoda. How it got so big or why it felt so much more powerful was a mystery to him though.

"Letting it run around freely outside is dangerous," said Ushio with a shrug. "I don't think anyone around here is strong enough to tame it if it went on a killing spree."

"And it's less dangerous to bring it to school?" Okawa pressed on.

"He's at least a little bit obligated to listen to me," Ushio leaned back on her chair. "If anything happens, Hades-sensei and I can hold him down long enough for you to evacuate the students. Though I'm not sure what good evacuating does…"

"I don't like knowing that there's a chance of that happening…"

Ushio glanced at Okawa briefly and closed her eyes. "Well, that's the curse of being able to see spirits, isn't it?"

Okawa frowned. He opened his mouth to say something, but swallowed it back in on second thought. He merely said, "Kanzaki-san… you've been acting a bit different lately…"

Ushio did not respond to him. She kept her eyes closed as if she did not even hear him. A couple of minutes went by in silence, and just when Okawa turned around to leave, a girl threw the classroom door open and rushed toward Ushio.

"Kanzaki-san!" The girl pushed Okawa aside and slammed on Ushio's table, making Ushio jump in her seat. "You're that Kanzaki-san that they talk about, right?!"

Ushio looked at the girl with wide eyes, still shocked by the girl's sudden appearance. "Uh… I am Kanzaki Ushio…"

"Kanzaki-san! You must help me!" The girl grabbed Ushio's hands.

Ushio blinked at the girl who held her hands. The girl's hands were extremely cold, and when she came close to Ushio, Ushio could feel an ill-natured air about her. Now looking at her closely, Ushio noticed that the girl was quite pale and skinny. Her complexion was horrible, but her uniform looked nicely ironed. Moreover, the redness of her eyes seemed very unnatural for a young teenager like her.

"You are?" Ushio asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, where are my manners?" The girl let go of Ushio's hands immediately and stepped a little bit away. "My name is Ichijou Mayumi. I'm a first-year. I… I heard about Kanzaki-san's special skill through my friend in second-year and… I think you're the only one that can help me…"

"Okay. First of all, you should know that I do not do free work…"

"Kanzaki-san!" Okawa couldn't help but jump in, but he only got ignored.

"That's no problem, I'm already prepared!" Ichijou Mayumi reached into her bag and took out a thick envelope and put it down on Ushio's table. "This can be the down payment!"

Ushio raised an eyebrow and peeked into the envelope. Her eyes popped open from shock; it was filled with 10,000 yen bills.

"Uh… what seems to be the problem…?" Ushio asked, her eyes still fixed on the cash.

"My… my younger sister… she's been acting very strangely…" Ichijou said with a troubled expression. "My family and I have already taken her to doctors and psychiatrists, and none of them have been able to help… we even took her to the local shrine for the priests to do a ritual on her…"

"You took her to a shrine and they couldn't help?" Ushio asked, "What makes you think a middle school student like me could be any better than those priests?"

"Because your amulet worked!" Ichijou slapped her hands on Ushio's desk again. "My classmate gave me an amulet that Kanzaki-san made and told me to try giving it to my sister. I tried giving it to my sister last night, and… she got extremely frightened!"

Ushio's ears perked up at the word. "Frightened?"

Ichijou nodded and rolled up her uniform sleeve. Okawa and Ushio were surprised to see deep scratch marks on the girl's forearm. "When she saw the amulet, her face was so distorted that it was scary. She jumped at me and then clawed at my arm. After she took the amulet, she ripped it into pieces with her fingers and teeth."

Ushio put a hand on her chin in thought. She hadn't made any amulets for a long time, and she only began to make them again a week ago. But, Ushio thought as she looked toward her guardian spirit, that was when she had already obtained Tamamo. Maybe Tamamo's scent had gotten onto the amulet since it is strong. Ushio looked back at Ichijou and studied her from top to toe once again, and coming up with an assumption.

"Ichijou-san, where do you live?" asked Ushio.

"Eh? Um… on the hill on Kanpachi Road…"

"As I thought, you live close to a cemetery," said Ushio, "That's why you have such bad air around you. If your sister is a young female, she could easily be targeted by demons…"

"She's ten!" Ichijou tensed up and yelped in fear. "Kanzaki-san, could—could my sister be possessed by a demon?!"

"Most likely," Ushio stood up from her chair, "By the way you describe her, she could have been possessed for a long time already. The longer the possession lasts, the harder it is to remove the demon. Okawa-kun, please let the teachers know that we are excusing ourselves from the afternoon classes."

"Wa—wait, Kanzaki-san!" Okawa called after the girl who had already walked past him, pulling the first-year along.

Ignoring the boy behind her, Ushio whistled for Tamamo and quickly went out of the classroom and down the stairs. Tamamo growled in annoyance toward Ushio's whistling, but stood up and went after Ushio casually. As the fox passed by, Okawa was completely ignored again. It didn't bother Okawa so much to be ignored, but he had a bad feeling about letting Ushio take on another case, especially with that suspicious fox.

* * *

Ichijou Mayumi's house was very old-fashioned; it was constructed with mostly wood, complemented by paper sliding doors, and the floor was covered by tatami mats. Even the trees in their yard seem to have quite a bit of age to it. When Ushio stepped in there, she could already sense not just one, but many demons' presence in the area. It didn't bother Ushio very much though, because they didn't seem to be very powerful demons. However, there is one demon's presence that was very strong—the one which resided in the body of Mayumi's younger sister.

"Kana-chan, what's wrong?" Mayumi went near her sister, who stood up suddenly when she and Ushio entered her room.

The little girl, with tightly gritted teeth and menacing eyes, looked at Ushio carefully. No, not at Ushio. She was looking slightly past Ushio, but there is nothing there when Mayumi looked.

Ushio noticed immediately the little girl's action. Furthermore, the little girl was as pale as a ghost, and the way that she backed into the wall with her fingers clawing at it didn't seem normal for anybody regardless of age. The little girl was also hissing slightly at Tamamo, who began to step forward when he saw the little girl. Ushio could not tell the expression from a fox, but the little girl seemed to have perked his interest.

"Fufu…" Tamamo made what sounded like a low chuckle, "Well, well, Nekomata, it's been a while; tell me why it doesn't surprise me that you're possessing the body of a little ten year old with hardly any furyoku to offer."

The little girl's eyes became sharp at Tamamo's words. "Hmph! Tamamo no Mae… you were quiet and hiding away somewhere for so long that I thought you were dead. No wonder I haven't heard anything about you from other demons; you've been enjoying yourself as a silly teenager's pet dog!"

"Kana-chan?" Mayumi frowned at her baby sister, and looked toward Ushio. "Kanzaki-san, who is she talking to?"

Ushio looked at Tamamo. "Nekomata… the split-tailed cat?"

"An acquaintance of mine," said Tamamo with an obviously condescending tone, "An insignificant demon who glorifies himself when he really is just a little bit stronger than the weak household demons."

The little girl, or Nekomata, hissed. "Shut up, Tamamo no Mae, even if you have retained your real form, you're still not as powerful as you used to be!"

"I'm surprised that you're not ashamed to say that," Tamamo narrowed his eyes. "After hundreds of years, you haven't improved one bit…"

"Somehow you guys are like five-year-olds bickering…" Ushio commented, "Can we extract it out of the girl?"

"The fact that the human features did not change means that the girl did not make a contract with the demon," said Tamamo, "Extraction would be simple."

"Kan-Kanzaki-san?" although not knowing what was going on, Mayumi guessed that Ushio was consulting with someone about her little sister. "Can you help Kana-chan…?"

"No problem," said Ushio as she reached into her bag and took out her prayer beads. "It might not be pleasant to watch a demon extraction, so please leave the room."

Nekomata looked left and right nervously. As Mayumi left the room, the demon got down to a crouching position. Ushio looked down at it; she had read about split-tailed cats before, and thought that they were pretty troublesome and powerful demons. However, with Tamamo besides her, she no longer thought that way. On one hand she felt lucky to have a strong partner, but on the other hand she felt a tiny bit worried—it was as if her own skills would weaken if she relied on the fox too much.

"Do you wanna step down in case the spell affects you too?" asked Ushio.

"Just do it, stupid bug," said Tamamo, "I'm quite amused by the current state of this cat."

Ushio held up the prayer beads. But suddenly, Nekomata smiled.

The pressure in the room became heavy to the point that Ushio was forced to the floor. She could feel demons suffocating her. As she struggled to look up, hundreds of demons were closing in on them. _Where did these demons come from?!_ Ushio thought. _There were demons here before, but they were just a few household demons! Better yet, why do they obey Nekomata?_

Just when Ushio felt like she was going to pass out, the pressure around her lessened. Taking big breaths, she looked up and saw Tamamo standing over her. His red eyes glowing dangerously at Nekomata.

"Same old trick…" Tamamo said in a low voice, "Watch it, Nekomata, this is the one that's going to be my human vessel…"

"Hmph! You've always underestimated me…" Nekomata snickered as he stood back up.

_Same old trick?_ Ushio thought. _That's right! Nekomata can control the dead!_

Looking closely, the demons that were coming towards them were all just human spirits. They were probably from the big cemetery close by. But the number of spirits was still too big.

"Where…did all these spirits come from…?" asked Ushio as she propped her upper body up with her arms.

"Did you think that I can only go so far as the petty ghosts around here?" Nekomata smirked. "Don't be silly; I've been working hundreds of years for this. These human spirits will be my gift to the demons. They will be lured here, and under my lead, I will create the first 'Parade of a Hundred Ghosts' in decades!"

Ushio felt Tamamo twitch above her.

"…Bug, read your spell," said Tamamo in the most dangerous tone that Ushio has ever heard. "I'm going to burn that cat into ash."

"…" Ushio looked up at the fox, but she could only see the underside of his chin. Although she didn't know why he was reacting to strongly over Nekomata's plan, she did as he said. After all, the 'Parade of a Hundred Ghosts' would be troublesome if it actually happened.

Ushio chanted the spell with precision. But rather than coming out from Ichijou Kana's body, Nekomata snickered. It didn't take long for Ushio to realize that the human ghosts around them were taking the affect of her spell instead. The poor humans fell down and grabbed on to their heads. If she continued to chant, their spirit will probably shatter and disappear forever. However, that was better than letting Nekomata have his way, right? They were already dead, anyway…

Ushio felt her power draining. Even though Tamamo was standing over her, she was still feeling the pressure. Maybe all the demons were coming.

_I have to hurry…_ she thought. But something caught her attention from her peripheral vision.

_"…Kanzaki-san! It hurts!"_

Suddenly, the number of demons in the house multiplied. It felt like demons from all over Tokyo were starting to gather. Even Tamamo began to waver due to the large amount of demons. He glared down at Ushio, who had stopped chanting.

"You fool! Why did you stop?!"

"I…"

Ushio's eyes were wide open. Her whole body felt numb; what had she done? A moment of hesitation brought the unthinkable. It was either the murderous intent from the demons or the regret of her actions that made her unable to breathe, but all that was in her head was the face of Shimai Reiko that she saw from the corner of her eyes.

"Useless maggot!" Tamamo growled and jumped toward Nekomata, fire forming all around his body.

The instant that Tamamo left her side, all the pressure came down on her. She could only begin to think the word "no" before blood spewed out from her mouth. Her head felt as if it was smashed into pieces like her prayer beads.

And for a moment, everything went black.

It felt like forever, but it had only been a few minutes. Ushio regained her consciousness and she was lying there on the tatami mat in Ichijou's house. The house had been ruined. But Ushio's body was in just as bad condition as the house. She looked slightly to her side and saw Tamamo standing there. However, he was not looking his way. Rather, he was growling at what was in front of him. The air was clean and she no longer felt all of the evil spirits around her, not even Nekomata. She slowly pushed herself up from the floor. Her vision was still a little blurry.

"I seem to always run into you in this type of situation, Kanzaki Ushio."

A familiar voice slapped her awake. She blinked hard and looked forward. A giant red spirit towered over the ruins of the Ichijou house. It was the Spirit of Fire. Its size had more than doubled since the last time she saw it. On its shoulder sat the mysterious boy that Ushio encountered a few months ago—Asakura Hao.

"Asakura Hao…" Ushio muttered his name powerlessly. "You…what are you doing here…?"

"Just like last time, Spirit of Fire needed to be fed," Hao smiled brightly. The moon's light made the boy's face look frighteningly pale. "You should feed your guardian spirit sometimes as well. It's a waste to have a spirit like that and still be stuck in a situation like this, isn't it?"

Ushio widened her eyes. "You let Spirit of Fire eat all of the demons… and all the human spirits here…?"

Hao grinned. "Well, yes! Can't you tell by looking? Where else would they be?"

"…"

Ushio tightened her fists.

"Tamamo-sama… that Spirit of Fire… can you beat it?"

The fox scoffed.

"It's just the Spirit of Fire. Demonic fire burns hotter than anything in this world."

* * *

**TBC**


	9. Tamamo no Mae

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 08**

**Tamamo no Mae**

My name is Otsuyu. I do not have a family name; I've thrown that away ever since I entered the Royal Palace as a servant girl. I was only ten years old back then. Working in the palace was harsh every day, but I tried my hardest so that money could be sent back to my sick mother. After three or four years, I forget, I was assigned to be a personal servant to the most beautiful and most respected courtesan in the palace, Tamamo no Mae-sama.

There was something different about Tamamo-sama. Not just her extraordinary beauty and her abundant knowledge about everything, there was a kind of allure about her that entranced everyone, especially emperor. I was only able to have a peek at Emperor Konoe, and that was an almost impossible thing to do when you're just a servant girl, but not when you're Tamamo-sama's servant girl. Emperor Konoe was younger than I had imagined. When he looked at Tamamo-sama, his eyes were filled with all kinds of emotions. As I grew older, I slowly realized that it was probably love. I don't know much about love, but I feel like I can tell that Emperor Konoe loved Tamamo-sama more than any of his concubines.

They said that Tamamo-sama came from a poor family in the rural area. However, her extreme grace and wisdom said otherwise. Tamamo-sama can answer everything I ask her.

Years have passed and I grew older. Tamamo-sama's beauty never changed. Her youth refused to leave her. I was about twenty-six years old when I came down with the same disease that my mother had. As a result, I was made to be sent back to my hometown. Before I left, I gave Tamamo-sama my most precious hair ornament as a form of appreciation. At that time Tamamo-sama said nothing and looked at my gift expressionlessly. She probably didn't appreciate my gift, since it was just a stupid hair ornament. But I truly felt happy being under her care during my stay in the palace.

And then, I spent the rest of my life in my hometown. I worked in the fields when I had energy, and rested at home when I didn't. Time passed quickly, and I was bedridden and had a head full of white hair. It was then when the news reached my ears—Tamamo no Mae had been sentenced to execution, and has ran away from the palace.

I couldn't believe the news, and I couldn't find out why.

But I remember clearly one rainy night, a night so dark that I had to light a candle to calm my heart. At midnight, when I looked outside, trying to find the moon, I saw instead the figure of a beautiful, golden fox. It looked at me with the most frighteningly beautiful red eyes for a split second, and then it leapt into the darkness.

And the next day, the death of Tamamo-sama was announced.

* * *

"Tamamo-sama!"

Ushio could not hold down her voice when Tamamo crashed into the rubbles. The all-powerful, thousand-year-old fox spirit was losing by a landslide. Tamamo's golden fur now seemed duller, and his red eyes lost their light. This was the first time in many years that Ushio felt panic.

Tamamo was on such high clouds just a moment ago that it even made Ushio so _excited_ that she yelled "Flamethrower!" when Tamamo attacked. Enormous blue flame came out from Tamamo's mouth, and it burned the Spirit of Fire just like fox said. The giant red spirit howled in pain as Tamamo continued his attack. However, Hao showed no sign of anxiousness on his face. Ushio didn't think too much about it; she pegged him as the type that underestimates his opponents anyway.

Yet, even after all the damages that Tamamo placed on the Spirit of Fire, the elemental spirit did not fall. Then it dawned on her that the Spirit of Fire was healing at an extremely fast pace, and it was only able to do so because of the great amount of furyoku that Hao was feeding it. Ushio began to feel worried; Hao was a furyoku powerhouse, and she didn't know how to utilize hers. Eventually, Tamamo was going to run out of juice.

"What a waste, Kanzaki Ushio, you haven't improved at all since the last time we met," said Hao. "Why don't you show me the furyoku that you're hiding?"

_What furyoku?_ Both Hao and Silva had expressed their awe with the amount of furyoku she has, but she has no idea that she had it nor does she know how to use it. She could feel the power within her, but she couldn't exert it.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Tamamo struggle to stand on his feet. The Spirit of Fire, on the other hand, looked no different from how it looked at the beginning of the fight. She gritted her teeth; she didn't want to use her last resort, but at this rate, Hao would probably kill her after beating Tamamo. It's not much of a risk; she won't give him total control over her body this time.

"Tamamo!" she called out to her guardian spirit while holding out her hand. "Hyoui-gattai!"

Tamamo's eyes sharpened up and reacted immediately. As soon as Tamamo reached her hand, his form turned circular, and she merged with the spirit right away.

Hao raised his eyebrow as he watched Ushio's appearance start to change. The golden glow reappeared on Tamamo's human form. With their merging together, Tamamo had direct access to Ushio's furyoku. Hao smirked; things became more interesting this way. Tamamo's power has more than doubled. Not to mention that Tamamo's long golden locks reminded Hao of a memory from centuries ago.

"Fufu… I thought the name 'Tamamo' sounded familiar…" Hao chuckled. "I didn't think you were still alive…"

"Asakura Hao…" Tamamo uttered Hao's name slowly. "I didn't believe that a little brat could be Asakura Hao, but it turned out I was wrong."

"Unfortunately, I do not have an immortal body like you. So is Kanzaki Ushio your new candidate? I'll admit that she's quite special, but it seems like she's only so much. Does she actually believe that a mere hyoui-gattai was going to defeat me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about—that hyoui-gattai thing. I'm the one that's going to defeat you."

Suddenly, the floor under Tamamo's feet burned up with bright blue flames. The man raised his finger gracefully and pointed towards Hao. The flames formed into the shape of a cyclone and pursued Hao. Hao jumped out of its way easily, but Tamamo's flame kept coming. Surrounded by flames, Hao had to escape upwards.

"Spirit of Fire!"

The Spirit of Fire came to Hao's aid just in time. A big piece of Hao's cape was burnt off. Just as Hao steadied himself on his guardian spirit's shoulder, Tamamo was in front him, elevated by the blue flame. The Spirit of Fire turned toward the fox spirit and attacked with its fist. Tamamo was hit, but the one that was burnt was the Spirit of Fire. The golden aura around Tamamo was like a shield.

Hao's lips curled into a smile. "Not bad. But as I said, this hyoui-gattai cannot defeat me. It's true that you're stronger with a human vessel, but you guys are lousy partners."

Hao placed a hand on his guardian spirit's body, and the spirit's hand healed instantly. And now, with even more speed, the spirit went after Tamamo. Tamamo dashed to the side; however, he was shocked to see the Spirit of Fire's hand right in front of his face. It was as if it leveled up ten times suddenly. Unable to move quickly enough, Tamamo was caught in the spirit's hand.

"Hey, worm!" Tamamo hissed. "Give me your whole body!"

"_No way!" _said Ushio's voice inside his head.

"Do you want to die? If you give me all of the control over your body, I can burn that brat into a crisp!"

"_I can't trust you. I'm gonna die with either choices. Shut up and give me some time to think of a way out of this."_

"You pathetic little human! You want to run?"

"_Better than dying! Now, just shut up for a minute and let me think!"_

"It's simple! Give me your body and I'll kill all the enemies in sight!"

"_How many times do I have to say 'shut up', you stupid fox? That's the problem with you! You're too damn stubborn and aggressive! You just keep having your way, going too far, and screwing things up! That's probably why Emperor Konoe didn't trust you and ordered to execute you!"_

"…"

The expression on Tamamo's face stiffened. Something Ushio said seemed to have angered him. "…Say that again…?"

"_I'll say it as many times as you want! I just want you to calm down and think for once!" _Ushio continued, not caring about the change in Tamamo's mood. _"I've been holding it in for a while now, Tamamo. Have you ever thought about why you failed at taking over Emperor Konoe's throne? I know, I read about it. You used the emperor's love for you and stayed by his side. You should know how bad your demonic power was for an ordinary person's health. And if you were as arrogant as you are now, then I can tell that you got careless. And of course everyone was going to suspect you because you stand out too much!"_

"… Kanzaki Ushio… You have some guts…" Tamamo began to chuckle. "All who betray Tamamo no Mae's orders will die…"

"_You're too manipulative, Tamamo. That's what you are. In the end, even the man who loved you stopped trusting you. You have no one else to use, so you lost everything. You know I tried really hard to work with you despite knowing all that, but you still haven't changed at all."_

"Well, this has gotten interesting," said Hao with an amused expression. The boy plopped down on the Spirit of Fire's shoulder, and ordered it to release Tamamo. "Maybe they're closer than I thought. Look, they don't even realize that they've been released."

"Hmph… what a joke…" Tamamo laughed out of his nose. In the next second, he was back to his fox form and Ushio was back to her own self. "I guess you haven't realized how useless you are without my power. I've been holding it in for too long. Get out of my sight."

"…Get out of _your _sight?" Ushio growled; she hasn't been this mad for a long time. "Shouldn't that be my line? You should be glad that I didn't hire anyone to exorcise you like Emperor Konoe. Actually, if there were a person that could, I wouldn't hesitate to hire him!"

Tamamo's red eyes glowed dangerously. He bared his fangs and growled at Ushio, and suddenly leapt away and disappeared.

Ushio widened her eyes. "…Hey!"

_He actually left…?_

Ushio couldn't believe it. She had already put in so much extra effort to cooperate with the fox, but this is what she gets in return? And after all this time, she was finally starting to feel like they were a team, but to him, she was only a tool.

_No… it shouldn't be that way. If anything, I'm the trainer and he's the Pokemon! _

"Well, this is the first time I've ever seen a guardian spirit abandon its owner!" Hao chirped from above.

Ushio glared at the boy, but said nothing. Without Tamamo, she had no chance of beating Hao.

"No need to be cautious, Kanzaki Ushio, it's meaningless for me to fight you," Hao said, motioning for the Spirit of Fire to take off. "A shaman without a guardian spirit is hardly a real shaman."

* * *

Ushio had not stepped out of her apartment for five days. Most of the time, she was wrapped up in her blanket, watching anime on TV. Every day, she could hear Okawa Toshiaki shouting from outside and pounding on her door. His persistence was quite surprising, but Ushio wasn't going to answer the door just so Okawa could lecture her. It's all right to miss a few days of school; she's been through middle school once already. Maybe if she had an exorcism case, she would actually get up and do some work, but the city's been quiet lately. It wasn't a bad thing; she needed the peaceful days for quite a while now.

"Ugh, these Pouch Monsters designs are just getting more and more ridiculous after every season..."

Ushio mumbled as she scooped spoonfuls of ice cream into her mouth while watching TV. She looked up at the clock and saw that it was morning. Feeling her eyes getting strained, she stood up to open her curtains. However, just when she opened them, her window was completely covered by a giant blue monster.

"…" Ushio blinked at the monster as an imaginary dark cloud appeared over her head. "…Why, hello, Zenki, what brings you over to my humble abode?"

The shikigami said nothing and stepped aside, revealing Anna standing there with her arms crossed. The two girls stared emotionlessly at each other for a while. At last, Ushio began to close up the curtains when Zenki suddenly smashed the window with its fist.

"WHAT THE HELL!" Ushio exclaimed. "WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, ANNA? HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF I TOOK 30,000 YEN FROM YOU AND BURNED IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE? HUH?"

"Where's your guardian spirit?" Anna stepped into Ushio's room through the window, withdrawing Zenki into her beads at the same time.

Ushio glared at the girl, hoping that she'd step on the broken glass. "Get out of my room. Or I'll call the police."

"I couldn't feel its presence for some days now," said Anna, sitting on Ushio's bed. "Did you finally piss him off and got abandoned?"

"…For your information, I abandoned him."

"Unconvincing. You're so upset that you let your guard down, and now you've been cursed and you don't even know it."

"Huh? What curse?"

"Could be anything; I'm not an expert on curses, but I suggest you look it up. Even small curses can lead to death."

"…Are you just here to humiliate me?"

Anna looked up at Ushio briefly, and looked away. "Yoh's not around. Make something for lunch."

"…I wonder why I didn't let Tamamo burn you to death when I had a chance…"

"…"

The room fell into silence. After a long while, Ushio finally sighed and went into the kitchen and took out a cup of instant noodles.

* * *

"You and Yoh always seem to run into the problems at the same time," said Anna as she sipped her tea after her meal.

"I hardly think he has as much problems as me," said Ushio gravely. "Or his positive-thinking skills surpass my comprehension."

"That's because he's far braver and stronger than you. He realizes his weaknesses and faces them. He doesn't deny them or run away. That's the Yoh I love."

Ushio felt her lunch coming back up to her throat. "Save that for the wedding vows. And please don't invite me."

"I didn't plan on it," Anna set her empty cup of tea down on the coffee table, and looked at Ushio sternly. "I hope you've been looking for a new guardian spirit."

"…"

Truthfully, Ushio hadn't even thought about looking for a new guardian spirit. She didn't even want a new guardian spirit. No matter how annoying Tamamo was, she was aware that she wasn't going to come across another spirit that strong. Her encounter with Tamamo was all luck.

"The Shaman King Tournament is probably your best bet for finding the key to go home."

Ushio's head jerked toward Anna and her eyes were opened widely. "How do you…"

"It's obvious. It's not like you try very hard to conceal it. Don't you ever think about why, the highly exclusive Asakura family took you in and trained you? " Anna rolled her eyes.

Ushio looked down at her hands. She thought it was funny as well; she knew the Asakuras were up to something ever since they saved her from the demon that killed her mother. Maybe the Asakuras knew something about her coming from a different world. Ushio stood up suddenly. She needed to pay a visit to Izumo.

"If you're thinking about going to Izumo, don't," Anna stood up as well.

"Why not?"

"Yoh is undergoing a special training, and no one can disturb him."

"I'm not going to disturb him. I'm just going to ask the old man some questions."

"Grandpa Yohmei is busy as well," said Anna. "Making sure that Yoh doesn't die from the training."

"Ugh, couldn't he train some other time?" Ushio let out an exasperated breath. "Why is he training anyway? Don't you train him enough already?"

Anna sent a glare at Ushio. "He lost to another contestant. Manta almost got killed."

Ushio blinked in confusion.

"Anyway," Anna made a move toward the door. "If I were you, I'd look into that curse first. I can tell that it's spreading quickly."

"Anna, I'm not cursed."

"Usually the cursed ones don't realize that they're cursed."

"You said so yourself that you're not an expert with curses."

"Take it or leave it." Anna glanced at Ushio before exiting the door, "I look forward to having you as my new guardian spirit."

Ushio pointed her middle finger at Anna's back before she closed the door behind her. In the end, she forgot to ask Anna for the window repair fees. Not to mention that she had been feeling a little feverish these days. She dove into her bed and sighed into her pillow. Annoying things always come one after another.

* * *

TBC.

A/N: Sorry guys for the late update. I've been really busy with school, but I'm on vacation now and I have more time to write, so hopefully I'll be able to update more often!

Some parts that might have been confusing:

*Yoh had just been defeated by Faust and is training in Izumo.

*Ushio lives in a one-room apartment, where the bedroom, kitchen, and living room are all in the same room, and bathroom in an extended room.


	10. Returning to Izumo

*A _byouma_ is a disease type demon.

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 09**

**Returning to Izumo**

"This is not a curse. There's a byouma in your body."

"Oh, so I was right, then! It's not a curse!" with a relieved tone, Ushio stood up from the rolling chair inside the school infirmary.

"Sit down, Kanzaki-kun," said Hades-sensei as he massaged his throbbing temple. "Let me help you remove that byouma; it's my expertise. The fact that you couldn't detect the demon possessing you really worries me."

Ushio shrugged and sat down. "I _can_ just exorcise it on my own."

"Of all people, you should know how painful the extraction process is. How are you going to chant the spell like that?" Hades sighed and placed a hand on Kanzaki's shoulder. "Not to mention that this demon is growing at an extremely fast pace. It must have been smaller than a piece of sand when it first entered your body."

"That explains why I couldn't dete—"

"Be quiet, please. I'm going to start."

The cracks on Hades-sensei's face began to glow from the inside. The pain started from Ushio's stomach and spread throughout her whole body. She shut her eyes from the pain, hoping that it would be over soon. She had always watched Hades-sensei do his work, and it always seemed easy and pain-free. However, it felt as if her innards were being fried. And after a torturous five minutes, a weight was lifted and the pain ceased.

Ushio slowly opened her eyes and took deep breaths. She looked up at Hades-sensei, whose white hair had turned into a dark blue color and skin without any cracks. She knew what it meant when that happened—the parasitic byouma that resided in his body was satisfied with this meal.

Hades-sensei sat in a chair himself, and faced Ushio.

"Now, would you please tell me what happened to you and your guardian spirit?"

"…It has nothing to do with a byouma, so it's none of your business."

"Saying this like that worries me even more," said Hades-sensei with a frown. He looked at Ushio earnestly and seriously. "Okawa-kun had also expressed his worry to me. Relying on people is not an act of weakness, Kanzaki-kun. We all _want_ to help you."

"This demon extraction was pretty much all the help I needed," said Ushio, rising up to leave again. But as she reached the door, she stopped before sliding it open. "Actually, there is one more thing. I would really appreciate it if you can inform my homeroom teacher that I'll be absent for a few days for me. Just tell him that I have a really bad fever or something."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to pay a visit to Izumo," Ushio said shortly before sliding the door open, stepping out, and sliding it shut quickly.

* * *

Izumo is a very old and rural part of Japan. Once you arrive at the border of the province, the train no longer runs there and taxis are seldom seen. Ushio, having not much money to call a taxi to begin with, had to spend a whole day traveling by foot to get to the Asakura estate, which is deep in the mountains. It has been a little more than a year since Ushio stepped foot into this place, but she felt more uncomfortable than nostalgic. It's not because of her childhood memories, but because the peacefulness of the countryside made her uneasy.

Ushio arrived at the Asakura estate at dusk. As if expecting her visit, Yohmei stood at the front gate waiting. Both of them had stern expressions on their faces.

"Yohmei…" Ushio called the old man by name; ever since she moved out of Izumo, she ceased to call him "teacher."

"I was expecting you," Yohmei nodded. "Seems like a lot has happened to you in this past year."

"I'm not here to catch up," said Ushio.

Yohmei made an inaudible sigh. "I know. You want answers." Yohmei had already gotten word that Ushio had encountered Asakura Hao. In fact, he knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but he hoped very hard it wouldn't. That is why he didn't object when Ushio wanted to move away from Izumo. But he should've known that Hao could easily find her like they did.

He looked at Ushio's young face, thinking that it was a mistake to find her in the beginning.

"Come on in, Ushio," said Yohmei as he pushed open the gate behind him. "No matter how we both feel, you're still affiliated with the Asakura family. It's time you learn about our family's secret…"

Ushio followed Yohmei into the estate, passed through a long passage way behind the mansion, and into an old family shrine. The shrine was dimly lit with candles. The walls were decorated with many different sculptures of Japanese deities and shelves filled with old books. In the middle of the shrine, Yohmei sat her down.

"I trust that you've already met Asakura Hao."

"It seems like all of you Asakuras always know things ahead of time," Ushio narrowed her eyes. "I don't see why I would even need to ask my questions out loud."

"Our family has a reputation, Ushio, it's wise to read your future every other week or so," Yohmei said with his feet crossed and hands on his knees, his back straight and yet he was still a small man. "You are the same. You have already done your own research on our family long time ago, haven't you?"

Ushio showed no emotion on her face. "Of course. Did you think that I was going to think of you guys as my foster family and be grateful without suspecting anything at all? There are probably hundreds of kids who are killed by demons, so why am I the special one who gets rescued and gets to be an unprecedented disciple of the Asakura family? I'm sure that Asakura Hao is curious about the same thing since he has already visited me twice, _testing_ me to see what was so special about me that _I _don't even know."

"You've faced Asakura Hao in battle?"

"Yes."

"That explains the absence of your guardian spirit…"

Angered boiled inside Ushio. The old man certainly had a guilty and wary look on his face, but without and even with a sincere apology, Ushio doubted that she can forgive him. "I've researched about that man. He is basically the one who made the Asakura family into the famed group of onmyoujis. He is basically the strongest of all of Japan at one point. Now, I can postulate that he had done something to piss the whole family off, and judging from what I've seen, he probably wanted to destroy mankind or something ridiculous like that, it took the whole family's strength to kill him. And obviously, he's still not dead, even after hundreds of years."

"That is because Asakura Hao mastered the art of Reincarnation. He has reincarnated twice, all of which was just in time for the Shaman King Tournament. He means to use the Great Spirit to cleanse the world of humans and create a new one with only humans."

"Yes, yes, I know all that," Ushio waved a hand showing her annoyance. "I want to know what that has to do with me."

"We noticed an awakening of an extraordinary amount of furyoku when you were born. You were born before Hao and Yoh, so we took this chance and took you in before Hao can get you to be one of his followers. We sealed half of your furyoku to hide you from Hao, and planned to release it after training you enough that you might be able to defeat Hao."

Ushio's mouth opened slowly as she listened to Yohmei's explanation. "You planned to use me to kill Asakura Hao, and you didn't think of the possibility of him finding out?! He is the strongest out of all of you! Oh yeah, and thanks for sealing my power without ever telling me! It could have cost me my life, you know!"

"I am sorry, Ushio," Yohmei closed his eyes and said gravely. "It was our mistake. We thought that by concealing your power, Hao would not pay attention to you. I was wrong about that… Hao found you before you were ready… But it worked out in a way, because Hao spared your life, having lost interest in a power that you cannot activate."

"It worked out?!" Ushio's voice turned up into almost a shout. "Nothing has worked out! You Asakuras are all selfish idiots! Break the seal and give me my power back!"

"If you stay this way, you would not attract Hao's attention any longer! Yoh is becoming stronger; the Asakura family will destroy the monster it created!" Yohmei raised his voice as well to counter the young girl. "You can become a normal student now!"

"Don't give me that crap, Yohmei!"

Yohmei opened his eyes as Ushio stood up abruptly. The man had never seen her so angry before, other than when she was with Anna, but those were childish quarrels.

"_You _brought me here in the first place. _You_ made me into an onmyouji. _You_ sealed up half of my furyoku. No matter how sorry you are about it, you dragged me into all of this," Ushio snorted, having gained back some of her cool. "You and I both don't wish for me to be affiliated with this family any longer. So give me back what's mine and we'll be done with this matter once and for all."

"We can't risk having your power consumed by Hao."

"… " Ushio was speechless. The fire in her receded a little, while a feeling of desperation started to rise. She felt that Yohmei wasn't going to listen to her. "This is ridiculous. You think you've done a good deed, but you've ruined my life since the beginning. I'm done with this. I'll find a way to break the seal myself and whatever else it takes—"

Suddenly, a glowing leaf appeared out of thin air and floated in between Ushio and Yohmei, cutting off Ushio's sentence. Ushio recognized it. It was one of Yohmei's shikigamis. Yohmei has a bunch of little shikigamis in the form of leaves. Yohmei stared at the shikigami quietly; he was listening to the spirit speak.

"Ushio, there is someone making a racket at the front gate. His name is Okawa Toshiaki and he wants to see you."

Ushio raised an eyebrow at Okawa's name. "What the hell did he come here for…?"

Yohmei shrugged and looked toward the sliding door. Ushio's shoulders slumped; she had lost some of her anger from the interruption. A new annoyance was built up toward her student council president, so she stumped toward the door. As she threw the door open, Yohmei cleared his throat loudly and said her name. She looked back at the old man, who had taken out his long tobacco pipe and was stuffing tobacco into the opening.

"Do you know what the only way to increase one's furyoku is?" he asked grimly.

Ushio did not answer.

"It is to die," said Yohmei, lighting the pipe with a match. "And it is the only possible reason why you had such a great amount of furyoku at birth. Even Asakura Hao did not have that much furyoku in his first life…"

Yohmei took a long drag from his pipe, and breathed it out slowly.

"Give up, Ushio. You've already died."

* * *

"There is definitely something wrong with you, Kanzaki-san, and don't try to dismiss me anymore!"

Okawa was out of breath. His hair was a mess and the sweat on his face glistened under the moonlight. Ushio casually took in this sight and looked around them. It was already the middle of the night. Okawa must have ran and caught the last train to Izumo when he found out about her from Hades-sensei.

"How did you find this place?" asked Ushio.

"I…" Okawa began to say.

"I showed him the way," a cold and irritated voice was heard from the other end of the road. Anna was walking slowly towards them. Beside her walked Manta and another young girl with pink hair. "We ran into him on our way. He seemed lost, and I recognized him. He's that one guy that's overly concerned and infatuated with you from your school, isn't he?"

Okawa's face burned up. "No! That's not it! But I am concerned about—"

"Ordinary people are usually not allowed to step foot into the Asakura household," Anna sent Okawa a glare and walked past him, and shifted her attention to Ushio. "I thought I told you not to come here."

"Why are _you_ here?" Ushio returned the glare.

"Yoh's training ends tomorrow," Anna said shortly. With one turn, she strode past Ushio and pushed the front gate open. The girl with pink hair nodded at Ushio quickly, and followed Anna and Manta in.

Anna didn't invite Ushio to go welcome Yoh back. Usually, she would've said, "You're coming with us." And she wouldn't allow complaints. There's a tight squeeze in Ushio's chest; for a second, she thought that her friends have deserted her. Then, she shook the thought from her head. They weren't really her friends anyway. Her friends are in America, back in her old world. Or, does that even exist for her anymore?

"Kanzaki-san…" Okawa called out the girl's name, softer this time. Somehow, he sensed that Ushio was not in a good mood. Worse than usual.

Ushio glanced at him for only a second and averted her eyes. "Okawa-senpai, did you bring a lot of money with you?"

"Huh?"

"I don't feel like staying the night here," said Ushio. "Let's go down the mountain and stay at a motel."

Okawa didn't object to it; Anna didn't seem too welcoming since they met on the road. Ushio took the lead and the two of them started to make their way down the mountain. Normally, Okawa would nag about how dangerous it is to walk in the mountains at night. However, as if knowing that, Ushio summoned _onibi_, a spirit fireball, and let it float above her palm. She walked slightly in front of Okawa, and Okawa followed silently behind her. In truth, he had many things that he wanted to talk to her about, but now that he was here, he didn't know how to start the questioning.

"Okawa-senpai."

Okawa jumped a little when Ushio said his name. She did not look at him and she sounded distant.

"How do you think reincarnation works?"

"… Um… I don't know…" Okawa answered in complete confusion. "Why are you asking me that? Shouldn't you be the expert at that stuff? You're the onmyouji here…"

Ushio did not reply. To be exact, she didn't really pay attention to Okawa's answer. For the first time in many years, she didn't know what her next step should be. If what Yohmei had said was true, then all of the things that she has done in this life would have been for naught. From forcing herself to believe in the existence of demons to exorcising them for a living, everything was supposed to be temporary. Her chest felt heavier and heavier as she contemplated the possibility that Mona Geraldine had already died and Kanzaki Ushio was her reincarnated self that happened to retain her past memories. That demon from the mirror could have just been a death reaper who came to collect her soul.

_What about her mother? What about Lisa?_

Did Mrs. Geraldine cradle the cold body of her daughter on the bathroom floor? Did Lisa cry into the phone for the ambulance even though it's already too late?

"_I finally found you… the Chosen One…_"

Ushio pulled to a sudden stop when she heard a cheerful voice from in front of her. It took her a few seconds to register what she had just heard—English. But when she looked up, there was no one in front of her. She looked toward Okawa, who was panicking as he looked around to find the source of the voice.

_This is bad, _Ushio thought, becoming alert about her surroundings. The mountain of Izumo is protected by the many shikigamis of the Asakura family. If a demon can trespass into this mountain, it would have to be a truly powerful demon.

"_Don't be so tense~ I won't do you any harm~"_

The sing-song voice came from their back this time. Ushio swerved, only to come face to face with a pair of yellow eyes. And suddenly, a distant memory surfaced to her mind: the terrified face of the loving Japanese woman, the merciless fire that pinned her to the ceiling, and the blood of that woman dripping down to Ushio's newborn skin. She suddenly remembered. On that fateful night, as she was being carried away by Mikihisa, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a pair of yellow eyes. The excitement in those eyes back then was the same as it is now. The intensity of it sent a chill down her back.

"_It was quite a hassle. Those damn Japanese exorcists… putting a seal on you. If it weren't for that teacher, who knows when I would ever find you…"_

The demon grinned, showing two rows of white teeth. He was extremely human-like; if it weren't for the yellow eyes, he could be mistaken for a regular Caucasian. He looked to be in his early thirties, but he could be hundreds of years old, being a demon and all.

"Who are you?" Ushio asked in English, the feeling of speaking her native tongue was a little bit strange and unfamiliar, which she blamed for the shakiness in her voice. "What do you want with me?"

Okawa looked back and forth at Ushio and the foreigner, and fixed his eyes on Ushio at last. For some reason, the girl seemed like a different person.

"My name is Azazel," said the demon. "I'm here to take you home."

* * *

**TBC**

* * *

A/N: For those of you who don't watch Supernatural (TV series), the character Azazel is the leader of demons created by the devil Lucifer. Azazel is super powerful, and his current mission is to bring Lucifer's reign to Earth.


	11. The Deal

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 10**

**The Deal**

"Tamamo no Mae… please, come to my side…"

Emperor Konoe, at the young age of 24, was bedridden due to an unknown disease. Many people in the palace believed that it was the doing of the emperor's mistress, Tamamo no Mae. Some thought that the courtesan had poisoned the emperor. Some, especially the emperor's advisors, believed that Tamamo no Mae was something demonic, because her beauty and youth was out of this world. However, the emperor was completely smitten by the beautiful Tamamo no Mae, and kept her by his side, dismissing his advisors' suspicions.

"Your highness…"

Tamamo no Mae moved to Emperor Konoe's bedside. The emperor smiled instantly at the sight of Tamamo's face. He reached out his hand and ran his fingers through her exotic, golden hair. At this gesture, Tamamo put her own hand onto the emperor's. Sadness was showing on her face as she leaned closer to the emperor.

"I don't have much time anymore…" said Emperor Konoe weakly. "I want to tell you my feelings one last time before I go…"

Tamamo frowned, but did not say anything.

"I want to thank you… for letting me spend even my dying days with you. I really, truly love you. My heart, my body, my soul… they all belong to you…"

"Your highness…" Tamamo said tenderly yet painfully. "Why? Even though knowing that I am a demon… knowing that I caused your suffering and death… why do you give me your love? Why do you give yourself to me?"

Emperor Konoe smiled as if he wasn't feeling any of the pain from his soul's decay. "Tamamo no Mae… I was touched by your heart. Creating peace between our two worlds is as much of your dream as it is mine. However, it is something I will never be able to do, being the puny human that I am. But if by sacrificing the life of one can save the lives of many, or even just one more, I wouldn't hesitate to volunteer myself. Tamamo no Mae, take my body and the throne. I leave my people to you…"

Tamamo stared into the emperor's eyes and did not look away until he closed his eyes. A soft sigh escaped from her lips as she stood up from the floor. From under her kimono, there seemed to be nine golden tails that were not there before.

"Konoe…"

* * *

"Ka…Kanzaki-san… Who… What is he?"

Even though it was a bit harder for Okawa to apprehend the conversation between Ushio and the yellow-eyed man, he knew that the man was trouble. He picked up some words here and there from their conversation, but most importantly, he understood the last thing that the man said.

"What does he mean by 'take you home'?"

"…Beats me," Ushio shrugged in an awkward, robotic way. "This guy's like a combination of pedophilia and 'yellow fever,' he gives me the creeps. Maybe we should call the police, Okawa-senpai."

Catching the cue, Okawa immediately took out his cell phone, but before he was able to punch in any numbers, his phone flew out from his hand and landed into Azazel's. During this short time, Ushio had taken out her prayer beads, but hesitated. She didn't even know what kind of demon he was; how was she supposed to exorcise him?

"Oh, sweetheart, you aren't seriously thinking that that's going to work, are you?"

Suddenly, the prayer beads in Ushio's hand shattered into tiny pieces. Instinctively, she stepped backwards quickly, but the demon only smiled and did not make a move to attack her.

"Easy, easy. I said that I'm not going to harm you. I'm a man of my words!"

Ushio scoffed. "As if I'm going to believe a demon!"

"You break my heart, Kanzaki Ushio," Azazel made an exaggerated sad face. "I only have good intentions for you. Say, how would you like to rule the entire human race?"

"…If you're seeking partnership in that goal, I can refer you a very suitable candidate. His name is Asakura Hao."

The corner of Azazel's eye twitched slightly. "When daddy told me to find a 'very special child', I'd imagined somebody entirely different from you…"

"Yeah then you probably found the wrong person," Ushio backed away a little more. "Now, that Asakura Hao boy is real special. It's not hard to find him either; just go look for a giant red spirit."

"As much as I hate to say it, there's no mistaking the power you possess," Azazel stepped closer and reached out a hand. Before he could touch Ushio, she was pulled away by Okawa, who stood slightly in front of her. Both Azazel and Ushio raised an eyebrow at the boy's action.

"What are you doing, Okawa-senpai?" Ushio grabbed him by the shoulder and attempted to pull him back. "Don't try to act tough now. This guy's way more than we can handle."

"I know, but…" Okawa stood his ground, and forced Ushio behind him. "I can't just stand still and do nothing!"

"Standing in front of me doesn't change _a thing_ in this situation," Ushio rolled her eyes.

The yellow-eyed demon laughed at the scene in front of him. "Oh, you humans are always so amusing to watch. Don't worry, kids, I told you that I won't harm you! I know it sounds ridiculous because I am demon and all, but trust me, if the boss says not to hurt the Chosen One, I'll make sure that you're treated like royalty in my care…"

"What do you want with us?!" Okawa exclaimed.

"Hey, hey, take it easy, boy. I'm talking to the lady here…" Azazel gave Okawa a disapproving look, and turned his attention back to Ushio. "Now, I know it's a bit too much if I straight up asked you to come with me and do whatever I tell you to do, so I'm going to propose a deal. Listen well, you come with me to where my boss is imprisoned and use your power to free him—"

"I don't have such power," Ushio said right away.

"Ah, ah, I didn't finish!" Azazel held up a finger to shush her. "You do those things for me, and I will unseal your sealed up power. Which you will need to free the big man, and I'll unseal you right before that and stuff…you get the big idea, don't you?"

Ushio pursed her lips. Okawa looked back at her, frowning, as if expecting her to reject his proposal. She couldn't blame him; it was the logical thing to do. But she was hesitating. She needed more power. Even if there was no home to, she had a feeling that she was in a dangerous position here. Even if Yohmei said that Hao would no longer pursue her, other demons like Azazel are still after her for this power that she didn't even know that she had. And as she always believed, offense is the best defense. She needed that power.

"…Who exactly… is your master?" Ushio asked.

"Hm… I thought you'd ask, but I didn't want to scare you off…" Azazel appeared to be contemplating, but only for a brief moment. "I think it's enough if I say… he is the 'King of Demons,' right?"

Ushio lowered her head. "King of Demons," in other words, _the Devil_ himself? Ushio couldn't even begin to imagine how powerful that guy might be, and what kind of danger that entails. Judging from the power that she feels from Azazel, she has probably a 1% chance to barely give him a tickle. So how strong would the Devil be? The one who created Azazel, and possibly all demons in the world.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to pass on this… privileged meeting with the Devil."

Azazel grinned, as if knowing that she would reject his proposition already. But he didn't give up so easily. "Do not worry. He will be extremely grateful if you would help him escape the prison of hell. And perhaps I should inform you that I can forcefully take you there without harming you… like possessing your body… or taking that boy as hostage."

The demon glanced at Okawa.

"He has no value as a hostage," said Ushio, stepping away from Okawa. "if you were going to take me anyway, why did you even ask for my consent?"

"The process of freeing my master would require your consciousness. I'm sure that I don't have to explain every single detail. You get it, don't you?"

Ushio could tell that Azazel was starting to get impatient. But a high-level demon wasn't going to loose all of his patience that easily. Powerful demons usually liked to appear cool. They talk too much. But it gave her time to think.

"Can you really remove the seal?" Ushio asked.

"Kanzaki-san!" Okawa swerved to look at Ushio's face, to see if she was actually serious. One look at her face and he knew that she was dead serious. His eyes widened in disbelief.

"Of course! It's only a small seal made by some pathetic Japanese exorcist!" Azazel raised his chin and put a hand on his chest. On his heart, if he had one. "I am the Devil's right hand! Removing that seal would be as easy as breathing!"

"If you're so strong, then why can't you free your own master?" Ushio narrowed her eyes. "I'm just a normal teenage girl. Even with my power unlocked, I am, at best, twice my furyoku. I doubt that I can surpass you like that."

"Hmph! As if I'd know! The boss has been waiting for your arrival for hundreds of years. Before then, a lot of powerful humans were born, a lot more powerful than you, but he wasn't interested in any of them."

"So, even though you're the self-proclaimed 'right hand' of the Devil, he doesn't tell you everything, huh?" Ushio pressed on. "In other words, he doesn't trust you enough. You get to run the errands because you're just a tiny fraction of the Devil's power. But I, on the other hand, am the special one for no explained reason. All we know is that once the seal is removed, you're just a second-rate demon compared to me."

The smile on Azazel's face disappeared slowly. The air around him started cool down rapidly. He was mad. Really, really mad. It was probably not a good idea to piss off a demon this strong, but Ushio needed to bring his head down if she wanted to make this bet.

"Don't push it, little girl… you are still weaker than me right now… and I'm sure the boss wouldn't mind a few broken bones as long as he can get out of the prison…"

Hearing Azazel's words, the corners of Ushio's lips curled up ever so slightly that only Okawa could see it. And that, Okawa understood, was not a good sign.

"Kanzaki-san, you…"

Ushio put a hand up to stop the boy from talking. "Mr. Azazel, it looks like resistance is futile. You weren't going to take no for an answer from the beginning, anyway. And on top of that, I'd really like my power ba—"

"STOP JOKING AROUND!"

Before Ushio could finish her sentence, Okawa grabbed onto her collars with his hands and forced her to face him. Even though it was a reasonable reaction, Ushio couldn't deny that she was surprised. Okawa has never done something so rude to a girl. Not only that, Ushio couldn't help but think, as she looked at Okawa's enraged face at such a close distance, that this was a very familiar feeling.

"THE KANZAKI USHIO I KNOW WOULDN'T FALL FOR A DEMON'S LIES SO QUICKLY!" Okawa yelled at her at the top of his lungs. It made the inside of her ears ring, but she kept a nonchalant face. "What's going on here, Kanzaki-san? You've been acting really weird lately, but I never thought you would go and help out a demon! You fought them, remember? You… who was orphaned by evil demons… you said that you wanted to stop them, didn't you? And now… you're going to help him free the King of Demons? Do you know what that means? Not just you… wouldn't the whole human race be endangered?!"

"You don't need to yell when I'm right here, senpai," said Ushio. "And let go of my collar. Don't you dare—"

"Don't talk like you don't care, Kanzaki-san! You say you only exorcise for money, but you've never left anyone behind! You're not the kind of person who'd let the world be destroyed! I know you're not!" Okawa shook Ushio by the collar, as if hoping to wake her up.

"…Shake me…" Ushio sighed. She tightened her right fist and hit Okawa right in the jaw, making the boy loosen his grip on her collar and step back in pain.

"Don't make me sound like a hero, senpai, you should know that I'm not," said Ushio, flattening out her blouse from Okawa's abuse. "You're too naïve. Just because I said a few things to stop your nagging, you believed them? I want my power back. The Asakuras won't hand them over, so I'm going to get it some other way."

There was a pained look on Okawa's face; Ushio couldn't tell if it was from her punch or from what she said. His lips shut tightly and trembled until he finally exclaimed, "What about your friends? What's going to happen to them when you let the Devil loose? What about all the people that are precious to you?!"

Ushio's lips parted a little bit as she stared at Okawa's face. She realized, if Lisa was here, she would probably say those same words, wouldn't she? She would have that stupid, worried look on her face, even though it isn't any of her business.

"It's none of your business, Okawa-senpai," said Ushio before turning her back on him and advancing toward a smiling Azazel. "What can we do if we said no? Run? That won't work, especially not for you. You shouldn't meddle when you can't do anything about it."

Ushio stopped at one footstep away from Azazel and looked back at Okawa. "Forget that this happened. It'll be better if you just ignore it. Oh, but when you get back to Tokyo, please tell my landlady that I'm moving out. She'll get angry if she doesn't receive rent money from me."

She searched in my pocket and found her key, and threw them at Okawa.

"You can just leave the furniture. They can be a gift for the next tenant."

With that, Ushio turned back to the demon and placed her hand on his. Their bodies disappeared suddenly with a poof of red smoke.

Okawa stared at the place where Ushio and the demon stood just a second ago, still not believing what just happened. And then, he looked down at the ground, and picked up Ushio's keys. Unlike the other girls in her grade, Ushio didn't have any cute key chains. All she had was a key to her apartment, a key to her bike lock, a Swiss army knife, and a discount card for the local supermarket. Okawa remembered when he first met Ushio. Many, many ghosts followed her around, but she was unfazed. She even helped him get used to seeing ghosts and spirits. He remembered that when she told him about her past, she never looked a bit upset when talking about her dead parents and her harsh childhood. She was always on her own, and she always forced herself to be independent. Always so distant, like she didn't belong here.

Okawa fastened his fingers around the keys. Turning back toward the direction of the Asakura estate, he ran as fast as legs allowed.

* * *

Ushio had expected the portal to hell to be located somewhere unpopulated. Somewhere dark, with demons lurking all around. However, when Ushio stood next to Azazel at the bottom of the Tokyo Skytree, she couldn't help but feel like she was ripped off.

"Really? Tokyo Skytree?" Ushio shot a glare at Azazel from the corner of her eyes. "You guys couldn't find a place more discreet than this?"

"It's the practicality," said Azazel with a shrug. "Hell is in the sky."

Ushio raised an eyebrow, but decided not to say anything. Over the duration of their travel, Ushio found out that Azazel wasn't a very smart demon. She asked him many questions, trying to find out the truth about herself. Why she was chosen as the special one. How was she different from other strong shamans in the world. However, he couldn't answer any of those. He merely follows the Devil's orders without questioning.

But there was one question that he was able to answer.

"Was Mary one of you guys? Did she try to capture me for your master as well?"

"Who's Mary?"

"That might not be her name…" Ushio recalled that incident. She remembered the girl in the mirror vividly, even though she was covered in blood. "A demon with bright blue eyes. She had no irises in her pupils. They were like gems. She had three dots on her forehead, in a triangle…"

"Bright blue… Ahaha! A demon?! You thought Emmanuel was a demon!" Azazel laughed so hard that he had tears in his eyes. "Emmanuel was an angel, you fool! Anyway, it couldn't have been her. She was killed more than twenty-five years ago; herself against twenty demons! What an idiot!"

Ushio stayed silent to hide her surprise. Not just the fact that 'Mary' was actually an angel, but also that it she was killed way too long ago. She has been reborn for only fourteen years.

"Ready?"

Azazel's voice pulled Ushio out of her thoughts.

"I guess?" said Ushio unsurely. "What am I supposed to do?"

"After I remove the seal in you, I will open up the portal to hell. Once your power is completely recovered, we will go in. Your body and soul would be crushed if you're not strong enough," Azazel explained. It was so simple, yet so unnerving. "I'll take you to my master and he will give you the instructions on how to break him free."

Ushio tried to swallow, but nothing went down her dry throat. So she coughed a little. "Well… that's straightforward enough…"

"We demons don't like to beat around the bush," said Azazel, not noticing Ushio's eyes rolling. He turned to her, and with two fingers he lifted her chin up towards him. Ushio suddenly had an ominous feeling. "Aren't we lucky that it's the dead of night right now~"

"Remove the seal already!" Ushio shut her eyes tightly out of instinct.

"Very well…"

Ushio shuddered when she felt two strips of icy cold lips touch hers. She smelled a sweet scent and before she realized it, she had parted her lips and teeth. At that instant, she felt something travel up from her throat and out of her mouth. Gradually, she felt an eruption in her stomach. It was warm, and it made her body feel light. It was her power surfacing.

When Azazel finally separated his lips from hers, Ushio opened her eyes. The demon bent down, coughing, with a painful expression on his face. After a minute or so, he spewed mouthfuls of blood on the ground.

"Huh… it appears that I underestimated those Japanese exorcists a little…" Azazel smirked as he wiped the blood around his mouth with the back of his hand. "Anyway, the job is done. How do you feel?"

Ushio looked down at her hands. She felt stronger. Unexplainably stronger. She felt as if she can release furyoku from her fingertips, whereas she couldn't even get a hold of it back then. Her power felt complete, like all of the pieces that were scattered in her body were finally strung together.

"Feels like you're ready," Azazel shrugged when he received no reply from Ushio. "I will open the portal now."

Ushio snapped her head up when she heard Azazel. He raised his arms up towards the highest point of the Tokyo Skytree. Slowly the clouds on top of the building began to warp, and the sky which the top of Tokyo Skytree pointed at began to darken. Ushio stepped back a little bit. She had planned to somehow escape after acquiring her power. And now, as Azazel concentrated on opening the portal, was the perfect chance. But as she watched a dark hole starting to form in the sky, and the disgusting feeling she gets from looking at it, she hesitated. Was it okay to just run away like this?

"_Certainly not."_

Both Ushio and Azazel widened their eyes at the creature that has just peeked through the entrance to hell—a giant serpent. It winded its body around the Tokyo Skytree, making its way down.

Azazel growled.

"Gatekeeper of Hell… Nazariath… how did it know?"

"_Did you think that you demons can keep making portals around the world like this unnoticed? I have already found and destroyed four others… but it looks like this time I hit the jackpot. The Devil's trusty advocate and a powerful shaman! Planning to make her the Devil's vessel?"_

To Ushio's astonishment, Azazel stepped in front of her and guarded her with his arm. Ushio understood that the serpent was more likely a friend than a foe, but the frightening appearance of it put her in shock.

"_Whatever it is, you will not trespass into hell as long as I am here… both of you will breathe your last breath today!"_

* * *

**To Be Continued.**


	12. You Are Not Alone

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 11**

**You're Not Alone**

Ushio was mad at herself. She was so determined on getting her power back that she forgot one important thing—shamans are useless without a proper guardian spirit. No matter how much furyoku she has right now, she couldn't put it to real use unless she has a medium. The training that Anna put her through became just a bit useful now, as she ran and dodged huge drops of venom from the serpent Nazariath. Luckily for her, Azazel was keeping the serpent busy, and they are about the same strength-wise, but that snake could do with more control with salivation.

"Human!"

Ushio looked upwards from Azazel's calling to her. The demon was up on the air, not even looking at her as he was concentrating on fighting the serpent.

"Find an opening and sneak through the portal! Once you free the master, he will come to our aid!"

Like hell I can do that! You want me to climb to the top of the Tokyo Skytree and jump up into the sky? I'd fall and die!

Ushio thought and decided that she had to get as far away as possible. Azazel is busy with the snake and the snake is busy with him. It'd be convenient if the snake could finish the demon off, too!

Ushio turned on her heels and ran. However, before she could get five feet out, the snake's giant tail smashed down in front of her, blocking her way. The concrete crashed and some pieces flew at Ushio. She had to get down to avoid it hitting her head, but one piece came low at her leg and hit her. She fell to the ground from the impact, and looked to see that she got a huge gash on her right calf.

"Neither of you will get out of this…" the snake said.

Ushio tried to stand and run, but the snake the large and outrageously quick. Its tail closed in on her and wrapped her in a tight lock. Ushio struggled, but gave up quickly because it was about the same as struggling against a brick wall. She glared up at the snake and shouted.

"Hey, Naz! You've misunderstood something! I'm not on that demon's side! I wasn't planning on entering that portal or freeing the Devil! So let me go—AHH!"

The snake tightened its tail. "It does not matter to me what side you're on! My job is to keep trespassers out of hell!"

"So you're just going to kill me even though I'm an innocent human being?!" Ushio shouted painfully. "That's ridiculous! I've never believed in God, but if God created you then he sure as hell made some serious errors!"

"Silence, human! I'll deal with you once I'm done with this demon!"

The snake tightened its tail once again. Ushio cried out in pain; any tighter and she was sure that her bones will break. And even though the pain was overwhelming, she could only think about how regretful it was to have had that fight with Tamamo. Even if that fight was going to happen sooner or later, it would've helped if the fox was here right now.

Ushio's body was mostly numb now. She looked down at the faraway ground and thought that maybe she was really going to die this time. She felt surprisingly calm; after so many near-death experiences, she wasn't all that scared anymore. Thinking about it now, she used to be so scared of just the idea of ghosts and demons, and now that she was in this world, she's unfazed even though she sees them every day. Exorcism became as natural as solving a math problem. But now, it appears that she had gone ahead of herself from rash decisions. Why?

"You should really see the stupid look on your face."

Ushio started when she was suddenly released from the serpent's wrap. She stumbled when she landed on her weak legs, and when she was only able to lift her head up to look forward, Nazariath's giant tail dropped right in front of her. Blood splashed out from one end and soaked the ground. Ushio heard the serpent's loud cry from behind, and felt the presence of two very strong and familiar spirits. Already having an idea of what she was going to see, Ushio turned around slowly.

Standing at about the same size as Nazariath, Zenki and Kouki held it down on the ground; Zenki stepping on the bleeding part of the tail and Kouki restricting the head. Behind the two shikigamis, Anna strolled toward Ushio leisurely, wearing patronage on her face.

"To think that the Asakuras have nurtured a loser who would easily give up her life…" Anna dragged her voice. "I order you to pick yourself up before you put more shame on our family name!"

Suddenly, the fire inside Ushio rekindled at the sight of Anna. An unknown anger boiled in her stomach and she was up on her feet without realizing it.

"What are you doing here?" Ushio growled. "The one shaming the Asakura family is YOU, you disgusting stalker!"

"Don't flatter yourself. The only person I would stalk is Awaya Ringo," said Anna. "Your little friend came begging for help. Even though you're an ingrate who wanted to separate from the Asakura family, I still came to save you. You should at least crawl over here and lick my feet."

"I don't want your help!" Ushio spat. "I don't want anything to do with you or the Asakuras!"

"Hmph! I didn't really want to help you, but…" Anna rolled her eyes and shifted her stare toward the giant snake. "I just thought that this would be a good chance for Yoh to test his training results."

Ushio took the cue and looked back to the direction where Anna came from. Yoh, followed by Amidamaru, Okawa, and Manta, ran towards the two of them. Yoh appeared to be exhausted from the training; he must have just finished moments ago. But even in that condition, he still had a serious and sharp look on his face. He already had Harusame in his grip.

"Yoh! You idiot!" Ushio shouted with frustration. "Why did you come?! This is not a creature that you can handle!"

Yoh stopped next to Ushio and replaced his serious face with his usual smile. "It's just like you, Ushio, to risk your own life in order for your friend to escape. I'm glad that you haven't changed much after all!"

"Listen to what other people say!" Ushio was flabbergasted. She remembered the last time that she had a talk with Yoh; it didn't end nicely. She felt a little shocked that he came to help her like nothing happened.

But still, she wanted to smack the boy. "Run, Yoh! You're gonna get killed here. What about your dream of becoming the shaman king?"

"I haven't given up on that yet," Yoh said as he looked at the furious serpent, which has now turned its attention to the newcomers. "You gotta believe me, Ushio. I'm stronger now."

With that, Yoh dashed toward the serpent while fusing Amidamaru in Harusame.

Ushio looked toward Anna, who has retrieved Zenki and Kouki, and began to watch Yoh fight as if it was just a movie. Ushio decided that the couple was completely mental.

"Kanzaki-san!" Okawa finally caught up to the group. He panted hard when he got to Ushio's side. "Are you all right?"

Ushio glared at him from the corner of her eyes and said, "And you, Okawa-senpai, are the nosiest person I have ever met."

Normally, Okawa would have a sad puppy look on his face, but he has now learned to cast Ushio's unfriendly comments away. "Is Asakura-san going to be okay…?"

"Who knows…" Ushio shrugged. As much as she was concerned about Yoh's fight, the brief moment of relaxation brought back the pain in her leg. The gash in her calf was still bleeding. As she bent down to examine it, Okawa noticed as well.

"Kanzaki-san, your leg—"

"Okay, okay, save it for the car ride to the hospi—"

Before either of them could finish their sentence, Ushio felt a pull on her back and she was lifted off her feet. Okawa's shocked face and extending hand shrank speedily as she flew backwards. Within seconds, she bumped into the chest of another person, and she made a muffled grunt. And then, long bony fingers clasped her neck.

"Not so fast, darling…" Azazel whispered into Ushio's ear from behind. Ushio could smell the blood from the demon at such close proximity. Not to mention that he sounded completely worn out. This proved that the serpent was not easy to deal with, and Yoh could be having trouble. Ushio squinted her eyes to see what's going on down on the surface.

"You almost forgot your end of the deal, didn't you?"

Ushio was surprised by the laughter that was still in Azazel's voice. Moreover, she was paying more attention to how high off the ground she was. If Azazel loosened his arm around her waist, she would be smashed into a patty when she falls. From this position, probably right in front of Anna. She would probably be very entertained. Look, she's even drawing a circle on the ground for her to land in.

"Well, we humans are just as bad as you are, Mr. Azazel," Ushio said relentlessly. "We love to cheat people."

Azazel chuckled. "You are very amusing. But I'm afraid that I've had enough of your jokes today, and I'd like to get on with the business."

"…"

"All right, let's hurry on—"

"I'm sorry," said Ushio. "It looks like I'd rather be smashed into a patty than release the Devil."

Before Azazel could say anything, Ushio brought up the heel of her left foot backwards as fast and hard as she can. In the direction of Azazel's crotch.

At the same time that Azazel's groan signaled her success, the anticipated fall began. She closed her eyes at the wind's impact, and the speed of the fall made her feel like her heart has come up to her throat. She opened her mouth and screamed; in the back of her mind she was glad that nobody can hear her from down on the surface.

Normally, she wouldn't be the reckless. However, as Azazel spoke to Ushio, she managed to see what Anna was drawing on the dirt. Although it was too far to be sure, Ushio had to make a quick decision, so she betted on her guess. And if she guessed wrong, then she'll really become one with the dirt.

"Stop squeaking, you pathetic bug!"

At the sound of the irritated, arrogant voice, Ushio crashed into a bed of soft fur. She grabbed on to the fur around her instantly, and grinned into the golden fur. She had guessed right.

"Hands off my hair! If you pull even a single strand out, I'll burn you!"

Ushio looked up to see the back of Tamamo's head. Words could not describe how happy she was to see him, and she wouldn't have said them if there were anyway. She let go of his fur and sat on his back rightly, and then she smoothed out the messed up spots of his fur.

"Tamamo-sama… let's do it right this time," Ushio muttered.

"…Don't talk so grossly…" said Tamamo. "And pay attention to your surroundings!"

Ushio swerved her head around. Azazel was flying towards them with great speed. He looked extremely angry, and Ushio could swear that his thighs were pressed together pretty tightly.

"How dare you!" Azazel reached out a hand as he got closer.

Tamamo jerked around in the air faster than Azazel could react, and with a big breath he hit Azazel with a blast of blue flame. Ushio was pleasantly surprised that the blue flame burned Azazel. He cried in pain and flailed his arms around to put out the flame.

"She is _my_ human vessel, you lowly worm!" Tamamo hissed, and flew toward the surface.

Ushio found it funny that Tamamo called the Devil's right-hand a worm.

Tamamo descended to the ground. Okawa ran towards them immediately when they landed, but was too afraid to get close because of Tamamo. Ushio looked at the ground in front of Anna. A summoning circle was drawn; she didn't want to admit it, but she was impressed that Anna could summon such a high-level spirit. Anna, on the other hand, looked away from Ushio.

"Don't think too much about it," Anna said. "I just don't want my future guardian spirit to be shaped like a hamburger patty."

"Shut up, Anna," Ushio rolled her eyes. She looked toward Yoh, who was still fighting with the serpent.

Ushio was right; the serpent was too much for Yoh to handle. Yoh was wounded all over, but she was surprised that the serpent was wounded as well.

"Are you just going to stand there and watch your fiancé die?" Ushio asked Anna.

"Yoh is the man that's going to become Shaman King," said Anna.

"…How is that… never mind, forget I even asked…" Ushio shook her head. "You have any extra prayer beads? Mine broke a while ago…"

"Hmph… shameful…" Anna muttered, but reached into her jacket pocket and took out a set of prayer beads and threw it at Ushio.

Without any thanks, Ushio wrapped the prayer beads around her right hand skillfully. They were the exact same kind that she used to use. Pleased at the quality of the beads, Ushio threw the wide end over Tamamo's head and wrapped it twice. With that, she jumped onto the fox's back. The latter was startled by her act.

"Human, you—"

"Hush, little fox, this is the only way I can think of for me to transfer furyoku to you," Ushio tightened the prayer beads around Tamamo's neck like a leash. "You should be grateful! Here's the power you've been waiting for!"

Ushio channeled her furyoku through the prayer beads into Tamamo. There was so much power that the overflowing furyoku could be seen with the naked eye, making Anna and the others turn the heads. Tamamo fell silent as the power reached him; it was much more than he had anticipated from the young girl. He simply breathed, and sparks of blue flame came out between his teeth. Tamamo's whole body was glowing blindingly. Ushio was ecstatic to see this result.

"Tamamo-sama… I'm so proud of you…!"

"…Shut up! I could've done this long time ago if you had just given me your power!" Tamamo growled and leapt into the air. He flew in the direction of Yoh and the serpent. "You want to defeat that serpent, don't you?"

"All right, Tamamo-sama, let's fry that snake's ass!" Ushio said excitedly as she pointed at the serpent that was just ahead. "TAMAMO! USE FIRE BLAST!"

Tamamo's altitude suddenly dropped a few feet.

"What the hell is that?!"

"You don't know Fire Blast?! I thought you'd be at least level 80 by now, if not 100…" Ushio frowned at Tamamo, and gasped suddenly. "MAYBE I HAVE TO GET A TM!"

Tamamo's head throbbed from Ushio's annoyance. He recalled that she has had very strange expectations of him ever since they met for the first time, what with calling him Vulpix and all.

"Ugh… I just have to burn him, right?"

Like a giant explosion, enormous flames were pushed out from Tamamo's mouth and hit the serpent straight on. In fact, there was so much flame that it would be a miracle if he missed the serpent. The serpent let out an ear-piercing screech, its body leaning to one side as if it was going to fall. Ushio pulled Tamamo downward and swept Yoh away from the ground so that the serpent does not fall on top of him. They looked back at the serpent; it was now burning rapidly and its body was turning black and crisp. The sound of its screeching became more and more inaudible.

"Whoa… Ushio… you…" Yoh stared at the serpent's dying state with his mouth open.

"You're not the only one who got stronger," said Ushio.

Yoh grinned, showing two rows of shiny white teeth. Even with all the scratches and scrapes on his face, his smile made it seem like nothing happened at all. Ushio sighed; she was bad at handling happy-go-lucky guys like him. Just as she raised her hand to give him a smack on the head, she heard a cracking noise and a splitting pain in her ribcage.

"Gu… ah…" Ushio stopped her screaming short, because it was too painful when she tried to take a breath. She put a hand to her chest; a couple of ribs were probably fractured.

"Ushio! What—" Yoh reached for Ushio when he noticed her behavior, but he was suddenly thrown off from the back of Tamamo.

"Yoh-dono!" Amidamaru shouted and went after the boy.

"Yoh… dammit…" Ushio took small breaths and pulled Tamamo in the direction where Yoh fell. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Azazel coming towards them.

From what she had seen before, she knew that Azazel had telekinetic abilities. Her broken ribs were unexplained, but it could very well be another one of Azazel's powers. After all, the man is The Devil's right hand.

As Tamamo caught the hem of Yoh's shirt with his mouth, Ushio also felt herself being pulled away from Tamamo's back. She tried to hold on to the prayer beads, but her fingers slipped in the end. Familiar bony fingers grabbed her arm, and another hand grasped her ponytail tightly. Ushio yelped, but the breathing also hurt her broken ribs.

"You pulled the last straw, milady…" Azazel said through deep breaths. Ushio turned her head just enough to peek at Azazel's face. Although she couldn't get a good look, he had many burns on his body and was bleeding tremendously.

"I despise doing it, but I _can_ inflict damage on people with my mind…"

Azazel and Ushio landed on the ground. The demon didn't seem a bit nervous even when surrounded by Ushio's comrades.

Seeing that Ushio was taken by Azazel, Tamamo tossed Yoh aside and made an attempt to attack him.

"Don't move!" Azazel barked as he dragged Ushio in front of him by her hair. "Another step and I'll make her brain implode!"

"Bu…bullshit… Don't… listen… to him…" Ushio said between small, quick breaths. "He… won't… kill me… He still… needs… my… power… He's weak… now…"

"You're not in the position to talk big!" Azazel pulled her ponytail down. Ushio gagged; she felt like her neck was going to break. Azazel turned toward her comrades. "Now… you humans can choose to die here, or run away and live your last moments in peace—"

It all happened within a few seconds. Ushio was freed from Azazel's grip abruptly followed by a loud grunt. From the corner of her eyes she saw somebody jump toward Azazel, and soon, blood splattered into her view. As soon as she was freed, she swerved around to see what happened.

Azazel was on his knees. His hands covered his right eye, but a massive amount of blood poured through his fingers. Beneath his lowered head, there was a shiny, bloody object on the ground. After a closer look, Ushio recognized that it was the Swiss army knife attached to her keys. Then suddenly, Ushio felt as if her heart sunk to her feet when she came to realization of what happened.

A little bit to the side of Azazel laid a young boy. His eyes were shut tightly and his mouth was opened wide, breathing voraciously as much air as he could get. His abdomen was completely blown open. The sight of the pool of blood and the mess of intestines made Ushio's stomach churn.

"Oka… senpai…!"

Ushio limped to the boy's side. At the sound of her voice, he managed to barely open his eyes. Ushio bent down and put a hand on his chest, which was heaving up and down to his deep breathing.

"What… the hell… were… you… thinking?" Ushio said through gritted teeth. She had to bite down hard to keep her teeth from chattering. She couldn't tell if it was from frustration or fear.

"Kanzaki-san… you said… he wouldn't harm you…" Okawa said weakly. "You're right… he is weak… he didn't even see me coming… I think this is probably the last attack he can manage…"

"You idiot!" Ushio yelled, and it hurt her ribs greatly, but she couldn't notice it now. "Not you… you weakling! You were supposed to run…"

"The others… would have hesitated… I was there with you the whole time… so I can believe your words right away."

Ushio fastened her fingers around Okawa's collar. "…You… you stupid idiot! You…"

"Sorry, Kanzaki-san… I can't run away," Okawa smiled faintly. "You are my important friend… I can't help but be nosy, you know? I can't leave you alone..."

"…"

"I know that I'm useless… which is why… I think Kanzaki-san cannot die here today… things around here have really become a huge… complicated mess… I can tell… but I'm glad that I know… that Kanzaki-san isn't the type that gives things up halfway… You always see things through…"

Okawa's voice became softer and softer, and his eyes became unfocused. However, only his smile stayed still on his face.

"…Kan… I…"

Ushio watched him mumble and mumble words she could not make out until he stopped making any more noise. Okawa's chest stopped heaving up and down, and Ushio could not feel any more heartbeat with her hand.

A presence could be felt close to Ushio. She turned back to see Azazel, who looked just as tattered up as Okawa.

"Hmph… that stupid human… what does he think he has done? This eye can be fixed by my master in an insta—"

"Your master? Don't make me laugh…" Ushio stood up and patted the dirt off her knees. She turned around and glared at Azazel right in the eyes. If looks could kill, Ushio could bust through Hell all by herself right now.

"Where your master's always going to be is Hell, and if you love him so much… I can send you there right now so you can go lick his feet all day and all night until they rot!"

* * *

**To be continued**

* * *

A/N: And so… say good-bye to Okawa-kun! Also to Ushio's battles in Japan. Onwards to America soon!


	13. The Wiser Choice

**The Night Will Come Soon**

**Chapter 12**

**The Wiser Choice**

"Has her fever gone down?"

"No…"

"…Will she be okay? She's been out for five days…"

"In addition to the fever, her furyoku is also nearly depleted. The recovery of one's furyoku takes a lot of rest."

"I guess we can only wait…"

_I'm all right, _is what Ushio would like to say. Ushio had been awake for a long time, but her eyes refused to open and her body refused to budge. She was still in a lot of pain, but she could breathe shallow breaths slowly. All the while as she waited for the pain to subside, she heard endless voices. Most of them were the voices of visitors coming in and out of her hospital room as she recognized. However, when the night came along, she heard voices from a not so distant past.

"_…Sorry… Kanzaki-san…"_

In the darkness, Okawa's voice echoed in Ushio's head. She was thankful that her brain did not project any images of Okawa's death.

"_Hmph… stupid human… what does he think he has done…?"_

Ushio remembered every that occurred very well. Infuriated by Azazel, the power inside her body burst out uncontrollably. The power felt unfamiliar, even. And then, out of blurry vision, she saw Tamamo coming to her aid with a deadly grave expression. No more was needed to be said; Azazel could not take the full extent of Ushio's power and was burned to ashes.

Her mind was surprisingly conscious. After a while, she began to be able to tell the time of the day. It was the dead of the night, and all of the visitors have left her room. It was extremely quiet for a while, until she heard the slight creak of her window opening. Something in her room stirred. It was Tamamo; he had never once left the room.

"Relax, puppy…" a familiar voice sounded from the window sill. "We don't want to disturb her rest, do we?"

It didn't take long for Ushio to recognize the voice. Who else could have that annoying hint of laughter in their voice all the time? Unfortunately, Ushio could not say anything or even move her lips. What surprised her was that Tamamo did not go berserk even though Hao called him a puppy.

"How funny. I can tell that you're annoyed even when you're like this."

Hao's voice sounded a lot closer this time.

"Seems like a lot has happened since the last time we met. I'm glad that you're alive and got all that power back, and I'm sure that your furyoku level will increase from this near-death experience. But it seems like you could use a little bit of help…"

Ushio felt a hand on her stomach, and then a surge of warmth flowing through her skin.

"Now, I should advise you, although you probably already have this in mind, to leave Japan. You pose a danger to everyone around you. However, if you had a strong companion, that would be a different case."

Hao's footsteps led him back to the window.

"You have a portion of my furyoku; you can find me when you want to make the right decision. Of course, it would help you to go to America and follow the Shaman King Tournament. I'm sure you wouldn't want to travel on the fox's back for long hours when you want to find me at the last minute."

With that, Hao's presence was gone.

* * *

On the next day, Ushio finally awakened. However, her mind felt emptier now than when she was immobile on the hospital bed. She didn't talk much with anyone around her; when Yoh offered her to rest a few days at his and Anna's house, she turned it down by shaking her head.

In fact, everything that took place after she left the hospital went by quickly and quietly.

The weather was sunny during Okawa's funeral. A large number of students from Tokofushi Junior High attended the funeral, because Okawa was the president of the student council. Ushio found it quite fortunate. She avoided Okawa's parents throughout the whole time, although she didn't have a reason to. No one knew that she was involved in Okawa's death, but the strong feeling of guilt still caused Ushio to leave the funeral as soon as possible.

Ushio hesitated at first, but in the end decided to go back to school. When she went to the infirmary to find Hades-sensei, he was not there. Instead, the principle, Mitogawa Chitose, occupied the infirmary. Out of the few people who know about Hades-sensei's power in the school, Mitogawa-sensei was one of them. She also knew about Ushio from Hades-sensei. As if to add on to Ushio's stress, Mitogawa-sensei informed her that Hades-sensei was ill. Ever since Hades-sensei extracted the _byouma_ from Ushio, his own parasite demon started to react strangely, which internally harmed Hades-sensei's body.

"Do not worry, Kanzaki-san. It seems like that parasite inside Hades-kun was able to spit the _byouma_ back out," Mitogawa-sensei said to Ushio in reassurance when she saw Ushio's paling face. "That _byouma_ was enormous… but we were able to get help and destroy it. Hades-kun survived along with his parasite; he is only resting his body now."

That was what hit Ushio down to the rock bottom. Just as Hao said, people around her are suffering without her realizing it.

With her head a mess, Ushio requested to go home early, and Mitogawa-sensei gave her the permission.

Once the girl got back to her apartment, she plopped down on the bed and muffled her face with the pillow. She felt exhausted even though she had been in the hospital for such a long time.

"I know you have to lose some to gain some… but…" Ushio turned her head toward Tamamo, who had been following her silently all the time since she got out of the hospital, and muttered. "Now that I've gained the power I wanted… I don't know what I'm supposed to do…"

"You went through all that to get what you wanted," Tamamo said harshly. "But you're just going to sulk everyday just because you lost a few things? Think about your original goal! You wanted to find a demon, didn't you? Hurry up and got on with it; remember that your body is mine afterwards. I don't have the patience!"

Ushio glared at the fox. "You wouldn't understand my feelings, you heartless demon."

"…Hmph!" Tamamo didn't retort, but just faced another way.

Ushio found it weird that Tamamo didn't get angry at her for calling him names, but she didn't want to push too far since she already chased him away once. "Well, she's dead. The spirit I was looking for, I mean. Turns out that she was actually an angel… but that doesn't matter now. She is dead either way, and I'll never be able to find out how she got me here, why she did it, or if I could ever go back. I've been here for so long and all I run into is dead-ends. I can't even find a few answers."

"If you cannot find what you were looking for, and you cannot go back to where you came from, then there is no more deal between us," said Tamamo as he stood up on all fours. "Your body is mine."

"Give it a rest. You're not getting this body as long as my soul dwells in it."

The two of them fell into silence. Tamamo was clearly beginning to feel annoyed by Ushio, and Ushio was in deep thought. Everything in her mind was a mess. Yohmei tells her that she's already dead in her past life, the demon who pulled her through the mirror is actually an angel, and she has been dead for twenty-five years. It didn't make sense because the times didn't match up. There were still too many things that she does not know, and she couldn't even begin to put the pieces together. And now that the angel and Azazel were both dead, who was she going to get answers from?

And then, she remembered Hao's words from the back of her head.

"Tamamo," Ushio started, "I'll make you a new deal."

"It's Tamamo-sama."

"You and I are going to continue with the Shaman King Tournament. If there is not a human, spirit, demon, or angel to give me answers, there's only one thing that will—the Great Spirit."

* * *

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

Ushio stood at the doorway to the dining room at Yoh and Anna's place with an eyebrow raised, because of the sudden loud shouting from a familiar boy, who pointed his finger right at her nose. The boy looked as if he'd seen a ghost. And even Ushio was a little surprised to see him, but she didn't overreact like the other.

"Hum… I can't believe you and Yoh really did meet…" Ushio muttered.

"Ushio! You came!" Yoh called out happily when he stepped out of the kitchen and saw Ushio.

Ushio merely nodded at Yoh, who was more excited than she expected. Although she had been avoiding him and Anna ever since she got out of the hospital, Yoh has never given up on trying to help Ushio get through her tough time. And this time, Yoh invited Ushio over for dinner. He wanted to introduce her to some of the comrades that he gained during the preliminaries of the Shaman King Tournament. Ushio wasn't sure if Anna put Yoh up for this one; Anna seemed to still want Ushio to help Yoh become the Shaman King. Either way, it seemed to Ushio that Yoh had made some good friends.

"Yoh! You know her?!" the blue-haired boy swerved his head toward Yoh with an incredulous expression.

"Eh? Horohoro, you know Ushio?"

"More than just know… I almost died before I even got to Tokyo because of her…" Horohoro turned back to Ushio and gave her a glare.

"Isn't that just because you're weak?" said a boy sitting at the dining table, not even looking towards the group. The words he uttered instantly earned him a death glare from Horohoro. Ushio, however, took a liking to his comment.

"Oh, let me introduce you to my friends! That's Tao Ren and his guardian spirit, Bason," Yoh said as he pointed at the black-haired boy who just spoke, and then to the other people in the room that Ushio didn't recognize. Ryu, the guy with the ridiculous pompadour and his green guardian spirit, Tokageroh, and Pirika, Horohoro's little sister who has the same icy blue hair as him. Soon after, Anna and Tamao stepped out of the kitchen as well, carrying dinner, which surprised Ushio because Anna rarely goes into the kitchen.

Looking around the room, Ushio could not remember a day when Yoh's house was as crowded as this. She could almost picture the time when Yoh was only a kid and had no friends because of his abilities. That was a long time ago.

"Oh, look who finally decided to step out of her misery," said Anna when she noticed Ushio's presence.

"I might not be fine if I taste that cooking of yours though," Ushio rolled her eyes at Anna, whilst everyone in the room gawked at her for saying such courageous words to Anna.

"I didn't cook any of it. It was all Tamao."

"Oh, I am relieved. I should have known; why would a lazy tyrant like you cook for everyone?"

"All right, all right, Anna, even if Ushio just got better, that doesn't mean you two should start fighting again right away!" Yoh stepped in between the two girls' routine just in time before Anna was about to speak again.

"Just got better?" Horohoro, unlike his usual dense self, caught some keywords that Yoh had just said, and looked toward Ushio. "From what?"

Ushio pursed her lips. She looked at Yoh and Anna, who stayed quiet and gave her the choice of telling Horohoro what happened or not. She looked back at Horohoro. He has no ill intention; he was just curious.

"Oh, you know…" Ushio said as she sat down at the corner of the table, next to no one, "The menstrual cycle."

Horohoro's jaws dropped and a shade of red splattered over his cheeks at the mention of the monthly female cycle. "D-DON'T TRY TO COVER IT UP WITH A STUPID LIE! I'M NOT DUMB!"

"Now that's a real 'stupid lie.'"

Ren glanced her way after hearing her comment and Ushio glanced back. For a second they somehow connected and gave each other a silent approval of friendship.

Horohoro growled, realizing that Ushio and Ren are the same type of people—the type that he despises. He then pouted and sat down next to Ushio, and glared at her. From the corner of her eyes, Ushio saw his glare. It was saying "I thought we were friends." Ushio sighed in her mind; nosy people seem to always want to be her friend. She put her elbow on the table and rested her face in her palm, hoping that the Oracle Bell on her arm would work as a distraction.

And it worked indeed.

"Hey, that Oracle Bell…You're in the Shaman Fights too?!" Horohoro exclaimed.

"Isn't that obvious? Why else would I have it?" said Ushio.

"When we first met, you weren't even interested!" Horohoro argued.

"Well, after I got the fox to be my guardian spirit, I got a little more ambitious okay?" Ushio nodded toward Tamamo, who sat resting behind Ushio. "So yeah, if you have any sensibility in that horribly bleached head of yours, you and your little Tinkerbell spirit should back out of the tournament now."

Horohoro looked at Tamamo, and realized that Ushio was talking about the powerful fox spirit that they encountered in the mountains. It looked completely different now, and its strength has definitely multiplied. Horohoro shuddered at the thought; it had already been incredibly strong before. But his guardian spirit flew up next to his face and slapped it lightly. He snapped back to reality and saw Kororo's slightly-angered face. She must not feel very happy to be called names by Ushio.

"Hmph! Kororo and I have become stronger too!" Horohoro held up his chin and swerved his head away from Ushio. "We're gonna defeat you and that fox and become Shaman Ki—UWAHH!"

A small sauce dish flew at Horohoro's face at godspeed and the boy was barely able to dodge it. The dish shattered as it hit the wall. Everyone silently turned to the culprit, Anna, who didn't even bother to retrieve the hand that had just thrown the dish. She looked at both Ushio and Horohoro.

"Yoh is going to be the Shaman King."

"Hahaha… Anna…" Yoh laughed dryly at his wife-to-be.

"Hmph… Sorry, Yoh, but I'm gonna be the one who becomes the Shaman King," said the Chinese boy, unafraid of threats from Anna.

Ushio looked at each and every young man in the room and shook her head. These kids are only about her current age—Yoh is even younger—and they are all obsessed with becoming the Shaman King. And they are all arrogant enough to think that they already have what it takes to do it. And if the Great Spirit or God or whatever is going to be absorbed by the Shaman King, she cannot imagine a world run by any one of these little brats. She needs to go back to her world. She needs to for her sanity.

The dinner started and the animosity in the air instantly disappeared. The room was quickly filled with happy chatters and loud laughter. Ushio ate quietly and left the dining room early. But instead of going back to her own apartment, she stayed at Yoh's place. She sat in the outside terrace, feeling the night breeze. Tamamo went onto the roof, probably sleeping.

Then, light footsteps could be heard approaching her.

"Ushio."

Looking up, Ushio was not surprised to see Yoh. In fact, she was waiting for it.

"Good thing you're still here! I thought you went home! I still have things to talk to you about!" Yoh plopped down next to Ushio.

"Yeah, about that," Ushio took out her keychain. It had everything attached except for her apartment key. "I moved out. I was hoping that I can stay over tonight."

Yoh looked astonished. "You moved out?! Why?!"

Ushio shrugged. "I guess…to remind myself that this is the last chance so there's no going back."

"Hahaha, I never thought I'd hear you say something like that. Of course you can stay here! And why don't we go to the airport all together tomorrow? Surely you know the Shaman Fights are being moved to America right?"

"Yeah, it was shown on my Oracle Bell. Thanks, Yoh."

The two of them sat there in silence for a while. They had many instances like this when they were younger back in Izumo, except it was always Ushio who sat quietly next to an upset Yoh who just came back from school.

Finally, Yoh broke the silence. "Ushio, I heard from Anna what happened between you and grandpa. I've been meaning to talk to you about it…but I thought the timing might not be right so soon after that incident."

"What did she tell you?" Ushio had expected Anna to tell Yoh about it, but Anna doesn't even know the whole story. She doubted that Yohmei would tell Anna or Yoh about the Asakura family's plan of using Yoh to kill Hao.

"That they wanted you to take on the Asakura's responsibilities. That they saw a great power in you when you were born, so they wanted to use it for the benefit of the clan, and selfishly sealed up some of it so no other outsider can get to you. I was angry when I first heard that too, but grandpa is truly sorry. He realized that it was the wrong thing to do. I think in the beginning, he was just trying to protect me from all the pain that comes with being a shaman…"

Not entirely a lie and not entirely a truth, Ushio thought. Yohmei is protective of Yoh for sure, even under the façade of all the strictness and harsh trainings.

"Ushio, we are supportive of you. Now that you got your power back and got stronger, you can work towards your own goals. You don't hold any responsibilities for the Asakura clan."

Yoh gave her a grin, as if saying that all is well and everyone can be friends again. Ushio looked at that grin and let a long breath out of her nose.

"It's okay, Yoh. I've never really bothered with your family's business anyway."

Yoh chuckled, and then his voice changed to a more serious tone. "So… what happened… with the giant snake and the creepy demon guy… I still don't really understand…"

"I don't either," said Ushio, frowning slightly. "And it's really annoying that _I _have to be a part of it. All I can assume is that I might be the key to the apocalypse. Literally, the _key_. All hell would break loose if I'm overpowered, and the Devil himself and his demons will probably take over the world."

"Is that why you're participating in the tournament? To use the Great Spirit to stop the Devil?"

Ushio looked at Yoh as if he was crazy. "Are you kidding? I'm not some kind of hero. Besides, with or without the Devil, when you've got delusional teenagers who think they can _change the world _for the better, or _create a new world _only for the worthy, this world is going to the crapper either way."

"Ushio… your thoughts are as dark as ever…"

Ushio stood up and stretched. "You should be used to that. I'm going to sleep, and you should too. We have a long flight tomorrow."

* * *

The night was quiet with only the sound of crickets. Ushio was sleeping very lightly in one of the old guestrooms, while Tamamo was still settled on the rooftop. Ushio had been a light sleeper for her whole life, and it came quite handy with her profession now. She opened her eyes at the sound of grass rustling just outside the sliding doors. She sat up and looked at the tightly shut doors and felt a chill, so she laid a row of paper talisman across the doorway to prevent evil beings from entering.

When she finished, she turned to go back to bed, only to come face to face with someone standing on her futon with a handheld lamp in her hand.

Ushio gasped lightly; she didn't hear anyone walk in.

"…Tamao?"

With just the lamplight, Ushio noticed only the pink hair of the young girl whose room should be down at the end of the hallway. The girl held the lamp closer to her face, and revealed that she was Tamao. Or was she really?

"It's just so sad to think Azazal was beaten by a careless little girl like you," said Tamao in English, with a slithery tone that Tamao would never use. "But I admit that I would prefer your body over this… Tamao, you said? Such a tasteless name… you can call me Lilith by the way."

The name of Lilith alerted Ushio right away. She had heard this name long before she even came to this world. The legend of Lilith, no matter what version of it, entailed that she was an ancient, powerful demon.

"You don't have to be so nervous. You should have known this was going to happen after you've messed with one of the Big Guy's favorite demons. Just relax and come with me if you want to live, or you can refuse and be ripped apart by my Hell Hounds."

"You're lying. The Devil needs my power. You can't kill me."

Lilith laughed in Tamao's body. "Oh, silly girl! Do you think _The Devil_ only has one trick up his sleeve? Someone with power on par with _God _doesn't have a plan B? Honey, you're not the only thing that can break Daddy Luce out of hell. You're just a pretty darn good vessel to have. And we really aren't all that picky, you know? If you're not gonna be useful, you can still go to hell! So what do you say?"

Ushio's heart pounded in her chest as thoughts ran through her mind. "Get out of Tamao's body first."

"Oh, trying to buy time. That's fine, but it's a bit hard to talk with you if I don't have a physical body. Would you prefer I use that blue-haired girl instead? You don't know her too well, do you?"

Ushio clenched her jaw. Sweat was forming in her palms. Her mind raced to find a way out, but the thought of what Hao said to her that night kept interrupting.

Suddenly Lilith waved a hand with a shrug. "Hm, I'm an impatient girl. Too bad you got assigned to me!"

A strong wind blew into the room from the hallway and before Ushio could turn around, her paper talismans were all blown into the air. Claws ripped the paper sliding door open and in came a streak of fire that passed next to Ushio and toward Lilith. Lilith, out of surprise, backed away before she got hit. It was Tamamo who stood at the doorway. A couple of giant, burnt animal corpses were left in the yard.

"My babies, no!" Lilith cried at the sight of her dead Hell Hounds.

"Tamamo! It took you long enough with those dogs!" Ushio rejoiced, but earned a growl from Tamamo.

"Shut up and remove the demon from that girl's body, unless you want me to burn both of them."

"I'm on it!"

Ushio retrieved her prayer beads from under her pillow and was ready to chant when suddenly, Lilith stood up and pointed a knife at herself, or Tamamo's body to be exact. That brought Ushio to a halt.

"Ah, I love how easy you humans are to read…" Lilith said as she brought the knife to Tamao's neck. "I wonder what the rest of people in this house would think of you if you let this girl die so you could live?"

Just as Ushio thought she ran into a dead end again, she caught sight of something appearing behind Lilith.

"Tamao! What are you doing?!"

"Just because Yoh would never love you back, doesn't mean you should kill youself!"

That 'something' turned out to be 'things', and they snatched the knife out of Lilith's hand.

"Ponchi! Conchi!" Ushio has never been so happy to see Tamao's guardian spirits show up. "Grab onto Tamao before she does something stupid!"

Ponchi and Conchi, being as simple-minded as they are, did just as Ushio said without even realizing that their master was being possessed.

Restricted by the two spirits, Lilith grunted and saw that Ushio was going to begin the exorcism. The demon gave her a glare, telling her that it's not over, and left Tamao's body. It left in a form a black smoke out of Tamao's mouth and escaped through a crack in the ceiling. Ponchi and Conchi both screamed at the horrible scene. And then, Tamao's body became limp and she would have fallen to the ground if Ponchi and Conchi weren't holding her.

Ushio ran to Tamao and checked for any injuries. The girl was unharmed, although she was in a weak state because of the demon's possession. But knowing that she was fine, Ushio ran back to Tamamo and jumped on the fox's back.

"If Tamao remembers any of this, tell her that it was just a dream," Ushio said to Ponchi and Conchi.

"Where are you going?" Conchi shouted.

"I can't tell you. Tell that to anyone who asks that same question."

With that, Ushio and Tamamo took off into the night sky.

* * *

TBC.

* * *

A/N: Sorry guys for the super late update! I keep rethinking about this story because I don't know where I left the original timeline I put together before. It needed changes anyway. I feel kind of bad that I keep making Ushio run off on her own and I hope it doesn't bore you readers. I promise she'll start to be more like a protagonist soon.


End file.
